"I don"t know, and I couldn"t care less."
"It contains the magic burning water that will sear you and char you in an instant if it touches-"
"Oh, come off it! There"s nothing in there but some common acid, probably sulphuric, because the other acids are made from it, and there is also the strong clue of rotten egg reek that fills this room."
His guess seemed to have struck home; the seven figures stirred and muttered to each other. While they were distracted, Jason stood up and walked slowly towards them. He had had enough of the scientific quiz games and felt bitter about being kidnapped, tied, dunked, and walked on. These Mastreguloj were feared and avoided by the others in Appsala, but they weren"t a large enough clan for what he had in mind. For a number of good reasons he had backed the Perssonoj to win and he wasn"t changing sides now.
Among the trivia cluttering the back of his mind was a statement he had read once in a book about famous escapes. He had noted it because he had a professional interest in escaping, since, on many occasions his aims and the police"s had differed. The conclusion he had reached by a study of escapees was that the best time to escape was as soon as possible after you have been captured.
Which was now.
The Mastreguloj had made a mistake by seeing him alone; they were so used to cowing and frightening people that they were getting careless-and old.
From their voices and from the way they acted, he was sure that there were no young men on the dais, and he was equally certain that the man on the right end was well into senility. His voice had revealed it, and now that Jason was closer he could see the palsied vibration that shook the large sword the man held before him.
"Who revealed the secret and sacred name of sulfurika acido?" the central figure boomed. "Speak, spy, or we will have your tongue torn from your head, fire poured into your bowels-"
"Don"t do that," Jason pleaded, kneeling and clasping his hands prayerfully before him. "Anything but that! I"ll talk!" He shuffled forward on his knees closer to the dais, bearing to the right as he did so. "The truth will out, I can no longer conceal it-here is the man who told me all the sacred secrets." He pointed to the oldster on the right, and when he did so his hand came close to the long sword the man held.
As Jason stood up, he reached out and plucked the sword from the old man"s loose grip and pushed him sideways into the next chair- both men went over with a satisfactory crash.
"Death to unbelievers!" he shouted, and pulled down the black hanging with skull-and-demon pattern that covered the back wall. He threw it over the two men near him, who were just struggling to their feet, and he saw a small door that had been concealed behind the drapery. Pushing it open, he jumped through into the lamp lit corridor beyond and almost into the arms of the two guards stationed there. The benefit of surprise was on his side. The first one collapsed when Jason rapped him on the head with the flat of his blade, and the second dropped his own sword when Jason"s point took him in the upper arm. His Pyrran training was serving him now. He could move faster and kill quicker than any of the Appsalans. He proved this when he ran around a corner, going in the direction of the entrance, and almost ran into Benn"t, his former guard.
"Thanks for bringing me here-I didn"t have enough troubles," Jason said, beating the other"s sword aside. "And while being a paid traitor is normal in Appsala, it wasn"t nice to kill one of your own men." His sword swung and tore Benn"t"s throat open, almost taking his head off at the same time. The broadsword was heavy and hard to swing, but once it started moving it sliced through anything in its way. Jason ran on and enthusiastically attacked the guards in the front hall.
The only advantage he had was again the element of surprise, so he moved as fast as he could. Once they united, they could capture and kill him, but it was late at night and the last thing the bored guards expected was this demoniacal attack from their rear. One went down, another staggered away with blood spouting from a butchered arm, and Jason was throwing his weight on the pivoted bar that sealed the entrance. From the corner of his eye he saw one of the masked Mastreguloj appear from the council room by way of the main entrance.
"Die!" the man shrieked, and hurled a gla.s.s sphere at Jason"s head.
"Thanks," Jason said, catching the thing neatly in midair with his free hand. He slipped it inside his clothes as he pulled the door open.
Pursuit was just being organized when he ran down the slippery stairs and jumped into the nearest boat. It was too large for him to row easily, but he cut the painter and pushed off with a leaf-shaped oar. There was a sluggish tide moving in the channel, and he let it carry him away as he dropped the oars on the tholepins and pulled l.u.s.tily. Figures appeared on the stairs, there were shouts and the flicker of torches, then a cloud of sleet blew in between and they were lost from view. Jason rowed on into the darkness, smiling grimly to himself.
13.
He rowed until the exercise warmed him, then let the boat drift with the tide. It b.u.mped against unseen obstacles in the dark, and whirled about when it came to another ca.n.a.l. Jason pulled l.u.s.tily into this, and made his way through a maze of dimly seen waterways between low islands and cliff-like walls. When he was sure his trail was sufficiently confused he pulled to the nearest sh.o.r.e where he could beach the boat. It came to a stop and he jumped out, ankle deep in the wet sand, and he pulled it as far up as he could.
When he could no longer move it he climbed back in, put the gla.s.s capsule out of reach in the bilge where it could not be broken accidentally, and settled down to wait for dawn. He was chilled and shivering, and before the first grey light penetrated the sleet he was in a foul humor.
Dim shapes slowly resolved themselves from the darkness-some small boats nearby, drawn up on sh.o.r.e and securely chained to piles, and further back small, squat buildings. A man crawled from one of the hovels, but as soon as he saw Jason and his boat he squealed and vanished from sight. There were stirrings and mumblings inside, and Jason climbed out onto the sh.o.r.e and swung the broadsword a few times to loosen up his muscles.
About a dozen men came hesitantly down to the sh.o.r.e to face him, clutching clubs and oars, almost shivering with fright.
"Go, leave us in peace," the leader said, extending his index finger and little finger to avert the evil eye. "Take your foul bark, Mastregulo, and depart our sh.o.r.e. We are but poor fisherfolk. . ."
"I have nothing but sympathy for you," Jason said, leaning on the sword.
"And I have no more love for the Mastreguloj than you have."
"But your boat-there is the sign," and the leader pointed to a hideous bit of carving on the bow.
"I stole it from them."
The fishermen moaned and milled about, some running away, while a few dropped to their knees to pray. One threw his club at Jason, a halfhearted attempt that Jason parried easily with his sword.
"We are lost," the leader wailed. "The Mastreguloj will follow, sight this craft of ill omen, and fall upon us and kill us all. Take it, leave at once!"
"There"s something in what you say," Jason agreed. The boat was a handicap. He could barely manage it alone and it was too easily identified to enable him to move about unnoticed. Keeping a wary eye on the fishermen, he retrieved the gla.s.s ball and then put his shoulder to the bow, sliding the boat back into the water, where the current caught it and soon carried it out of sight.
"That problem is taken care of," Jason said. "Now I have to get back to the Perssonoj stronghold. Which of you wants the ferry job?"
The fishermen began to drift away, and Jason planted himself in front of the leader before he could vanish too. "Well, how about it?"
"I don"t think I could find it," the man said, going white under his wind- burned skin. "Fog, plenty of sleet, I never go that way . . ."
"Come on, now, you"ll be well paid, just as soon as we land. Name your price."
The man gave a mean laugh and tried to edge away.
"I see what you mean," Jason said, putting his sword in the other"s way.
"Credit is one custom that doesn"t mean much here."
Jason looked thoughtfully at the sword and realized for the first time that the b.u.mps on the hilt were faceted stones in ornate settings. He pointed to them.
"Here we go, payment in advance if you can find me a knife to pry these out with.
As a down payment, that red one that looks like a ruby; then the green one when we get there."
With a bit of arguing, and the addition of another red stone, avarice won over fear, as usual, and the fisherman pushed a small and badly joined boat into the ca.n.a.l. He rowed while Jason bailed and they began a surrept.i.tious tour of the back ca.n.a.ls. Aided by sleet, fog, and the fisherman"s suddenly regained and intimate knowledge of the waterways, they arrived un.o.bserved at some crumbled stone steps leading to a barred gate. The man swore that this was an entrance to the Perssonoj stronghold. Jason, well versed in local custom by now, was aware that it might be something quite different, even a way to the Mastreguloj he had just left, and he kept one foot in the boat until a guard appeared with the characteristic Perssonoj sunburst on his cloak. The fisherman received the final payment with astonishment and rowed quickly away, muttering to himself.
Another guard was called, Jason"s sword was taken from him, and he was quickly brought to the Hertug"s audience chamber.
"Traitor!" the Hertug shouted, dispensing with all formalities. "You conspire to kill my men and flee, but I have you now-"
"Oh, stop it!" Jason said irritably, and shrugged away the guards who were holding his arms. "I returned voluntarily, and that should mean something, even in Appsala. I was kidnapped by the Mastreguloj, with the aid of a traitor in your guard-"
"His name!"
"Benn"t, deceased-I saw to that myself. Your trusted captain sold you out to the compet.i.tion, who wanted me to work for them, but I didn"t accept. I didn"t think too much of their outfit and I left before they got around to making an offer.
But I brought a sample back with me." Jason pulled out the gla.s.s sphere of acid and the guards dropped back, screaming, and even the Hertug went white.
"The burning water!" he gasped.
"Exactly. And as soon as I get some lead it is going to become part of the wet cell battery I was busy inventing. I"m annoyed, Hertug-I don"t like being kidnapped and pushed around. Everything about Appsala annoys me, and I have some plans for the future. Clear these men out so I can tell my plans to you."
The Hertug chewed his lip nervously and looked at the guards. "You came back," he said to Jason-"why?"
"Because I need you just as much as you need me. You have plenty of men, power, and money. I have big plans. Now clear the serfs out."
There was a bowl of krenoj on the table and Jason rooted around for a fresh one and bit off a piece. The Hertug was thinking hard.
"You came back," he said again. He seemed to find this fact astonishing.
"Let us. talk."
"Alone."
"Clear the chamber," he ordered, but he took the precaution of having a c.o.c.ked crossbow placed before him. Jason ignored it; he had expected no less. He crossed to the badly glazed window and looked out at the island city. The storm had stopped finally, and weak sunshine was lighting up the rain-darkened roofs.
"How would you like to own all that?" Jason asked.
"Speak on." The Hertug"s little eyes glittered.
"I mentioned this before, but now I mean it-seriously. I am going to reveal to you every secret of every other clan on this d.a.m.ned planet. I"m going to show you how the d"zertanoj distill oil, how the Mastreguloj make sulphuric acid, how the Trozelligoj build engines. Then I"m going to improve your weapons of war, and introduce as many new ones as I can. I will make war so terrible that it will no longer be possible. Of course it will still go on, but your troops will always win.
You"ll wipe out the compet.i.tion, one by one, starting with the weakest ones, until you will be the master of this city, then of the whole planet. The riches of a world will be yours, and your evenings will be enlivened by the horrible deaths you will mete out to your enemies. What do you say?"
"Supren la Perssonoj!" the Hertug shouted, leaping to his feet.
"That"s what I thought you would say. If I"m going to be stuck here for any length of time I want to get in a few body blows to the system. I have been entirely too uncomfortable, and it is time for a change."
14 The days grew longer, the sleet turned to rain, but even that finally stopped. The last clouds eventually blew out to sea and the sun shone down on the city of Appsala. Buds opened, flowers blossomed and filled the air with perfume, while from the warming waters of the ca.n.a.ls there rose another odor, less pleasant, that Jason could just as well have done without. But he had very little time to notice it, for he was working long hours at both research and production, a constantly exhausting task. Pure research and production development were expensive, and when the bills mounted too high the Hertug scratched in his beard and mumbled about the good old days. Then Jason had to drop everything and produce a fresh miracle or two. The arc light was one; then the arc furnace, which helped with the metallurgical work and made the Hertug very happy, particularly when he found out how good it was for torture and fed a captured Trozelligo into it until he told them what they wanted to know. When this novelty palled, Jason introduced electroplating, which helped fill the treasury both through jewelry sales and counterfeiting.
After opening the Mastreguloj gla.s.s sphere with elaborate precautions, Jason satisfied himself that it did contain sulphuric acid, and he constructed a heavy, but effective, storage battery. Still angry over the kidnapping, he led an attack on a Mastreguloj barge and captured a large supply of acid, as well as a.s.sorted other chemicals. These he was testing whenever he had the time. He had followed a number of dead-end trails, but had been forced to abandon them. The formula for gunpowder escaped him, and this depressed him, though it cheered his a.s.sistants who had been raking through old manure piles for supplies of saltpeter.
He had more success with caro) and steam engines, because of previous experience, and developed a lightweight, st.u.r.dy marine engine. In his spare moments he invented movable type, the telephone, and the loudspeaker-which, with the addition of the phonograph record, did wonders for the religious revenue in production of spirit voices. He also made a naval propeller to go with his engine, and was busily perfecting a steam catapult. For his own pleasure he had set up a still in his rooms, with which he manufactured a coa.r.s.e but effective brandy.
"All in all, things aren"t going too badly," he said, lolling back in his upholstered easy chair and sipping a gla.s.s of his latest and best. It had been a warm day, and more than a bit choking with the effluvia that rose from the ca.n.a.ls, but now the evening sea breeze was cool and sweet as it blew in through the open windows. Under his belt was a fine steak, cooked on a charcoal grill of his own invention, served with mashed krenoj and bread baked from flour ground in his recently invented mill. Ijale was singing in the kitchen as she cleaned up, and Mikah was industriously running a brush through the pipes of the still, clearing away the dregs of the last batch.
"Sure you won"t join me in a quick one?" Jason asked, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the milk of human kindness.
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. . . . Proverbs," Mikah declaimed in his best style.
"Wine that maketh glad the heart of man. Psalms. I"ve read the Book too.
But if you won"t have a friendly cup, why don"t you have a ref reshing gla.s.s of water and take a rest? That job can wait until morning."
"I am your slave," Mikah said darkly, touching the iron collar about his neck for an instant, then turning back to his work.
"Well, you have only yourself to blame. If you were more trustworthy I would give you your freedom. In fact, why don"t I do that? Just give me your word that you"ll not cook up any more trouble, and I"ll have you out of that collar before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism. I think I"m in well enough with the Hertug to ride any minor troubles you might cause. What do you say? As narrow- minded as your conversation is, it"s at least twice as good as anything else I can find on this planet."
Mikah touched the collar again and looked doubtful for just a moment.
Then he shouted "No!" and jerked his fingers away as if they were burnt. "Behind me, Satan! Down! I will give you no pledges, nor will I put my honor in fief to such as you. Better to serve in bondage until the day of liberation when I will see you standing trial for such crimes as this, standing before a bar of justice, being sentenced and doomed."
"Well, you leave little doubt as to your ambitions." Jason drained the gla.s.s appreciatively and refilled it. "I hope they work out, at least the day of liberation part; after that I find our opinions of the correct course differ a little. But have you ever stopped to think how far away that day of liberation may be? And just what are you doing to bring it about?"
"I can do nothing-I am a slave!"
"Yes, and we both know why. But aside from that, do you think you could do any better if you were free? I"ll answer for you. No. But I can do better, and I have come up with a few answers. For one thing, there are no offworlders besides us on this forsaken planet. I found some crystals that resonate nicely and I built a crystal radio. I didn"t hear a thing except atmospherics and my own holy S.O.S."
"What blasphemy do you speak?"
"Didn"t I ever tell you? I built a simple radio disguised as an electronic prayer wheel and the faithful have been broadcasting religiously since the first day."
"Is nothing sacred to you, blasphemer?"
"We"ll go into that some other time-though I can"t see what you are complaining about now. Do you mean you respect this phoney religion with great G.o.d Elektro and all the rest? You should be thankful that I am getting some productive mileage out of the worshipers. If any s.p.a.cer ever gets near the atmosphere of this planet, it will pick up the call for help and head this way."
"How soon?" Mikah asked, interested in spite of himself.
"It could be in five minutes-or in five hundred years. Even if someone is looking for you, there are a lot of planets in this galaxy. I doubt if the Pyrrans will come after me-they have only one s.p.a.ceship and have plenty of uses for it. What about your people?"
"They will pray for me, but they cannot search. Most of our money was used to obtain the ship you so willfully destroyed. But what of other ships? Surely traders, explorers. .
"Chance-it depends completely on the hazards of chance. As I said, five minutes from now, five centuries-or never. The blind workings of chance."
Mikah sat down heavily, wrapped in gloom, and Jason-despite the fact that he realized he should know better-felt a momentary pang of pity. "But cheer up, things aren"t that bad here," he said. "Just compare our present position with our first job kreno hunting in Ch"aka"s merry band. Now we have a place with comfortable furnishings, heating, good food, and, as fast as I can invent them, all the modern conveniences. For my own comfort, plus the fact that I hate so many of the people involved, I am going to drag this world out of its dark age and get it headed into the glories of the technological future. Did you think I was going to all this trouble just to help the Hertug?"
"I do not understand."
"That"s fairly typical. Look, we have here a static culture that is never going to change without a large charge of explosive put in the proper place. That"s me.
As long as knowledge is cla.s.sified as an official secret, there will be no advance.
There will probably be slight modifications and improvements within these clans as they work on their specialties, but nothing of any vital importance. I"m ruining all that. I"m letting our Hertug have the information possessed by every other tribe, plus a lot of gadgets they don"t know about yet. This destroys the normal check and balance that keeps these warring mobs roughly equal, and if he runs his war right-meaning my way-he can pick them off one by one.. ."
"War?" Mikah asked, his nostrils flaring, the old light back in his eyes. "Did you say war?"
"That"s the word," Jason answered, complacently sipping at his gla.s.s, drunk with his own vision and half-stoned on the home brew, so that he did not notice the warning signs. "As someone once said, you can"t make an omelet without breaking eggs. Left alone, this world will stumble on in its...o...b..t forever with ninety-nine per cent of the population doomed to disease, poverty, filth, misery, slavery, and all the rest. I"m going to start a war, a nice, clean scientific one that will wipe out the compet.i.tion. When it is all over this will be a far, far better place for everyone. The Hertug will have cleaned up the other mobs and will be dictator. The work I am doing is already too much for the ancient sciuloj, and I have been subcontracting to slaves and training younger technicians from the family. When I am through there will be cross-fertilization of all the sciences, and industrial revolution will be in full swing here. There will be no turning back, because the old ways will be dead. Machines, capital, entrepreneurs, leisure, the arts . . ."
"You are a monster!" Mikah rasped through his teeth. "To satisfy your own ego you would even start war and condemn thousands of innocents to death. I will stop you, if it costs me my life!"
"Whazzat . . . ?" Jason said, lifting his head. He had drifted off to sleep, worn out from work and lulled by his own golden vision.
But Mikah did not answer. He had his back turned and was bent over the still, cleaning it. His face was flushed and his teeth were clamped so hard into his lip that a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin. He had finally learned the benefits of silence at certain times, though the effort of maintaining it was almost killing him.
In the courtyard of the Perssonoj keep was a great stone tank kept filled with fresh water pumped from barges. Here the slaves met as they drew their supplies, and here was the center of gossip-and intrigue. Mikah waited his turn at the tap to fill his bucket, but at the same time he examined the faces of the other slaves, looking for the one who had talked to him a few weeks earlier, whom he had ignored at the time. He finally saw him, dragging in f.a.ggots of firewood from the unloading dock, and went over to him.
"I will help," Mikah whispered as he pa.s.sed. The man smiled crookedly.