"You ain"t got so much," scoffed Gleed, more in friendly criticism than open contempt. He turned to
Harrison. "Have they?"
"It wouldn"t appear so," ventured Harrison.
"Don"t go by appearances," Jeff advised. "We"ve more than you"d care to guess at."
"Such as what?"
"Well, just for a start, we"ve got the mightiest weapon ever thought up by mind of man. We"re Gands,
see? So we don"t need ships and guns and suchlike playthings. We"ve got something better. It"s effective.
There"s no defense against it."
"I"d like to see it," Gleed challenged. Data on a new and exceptionally powerful weapon should be a good deal more valuable than the mayor"s address. Grayder might be sufficiently overcome by the importance thereof to increase the take to five thousand credits. With a touch of sarcasm, he added, "But, of course, I can"t expect you to give away secrets."
"There"s nothing secret about it." said Jeff, very surprisingly. "You can have it for free any time you want. Any Gand would give it you for the asking. Like to know why?"
"You bet."
"Because it works one way only. We can use it against you-but you can"t use it against us."
"There"s no such thing. There"s no weapon inventable which the other guy can"t employ once he gets his hands on it and knows how to operate it."
"You sure?"
"Positive," said Gleed, with no hesitation whatever. "I"ve been in the s.p.a.ce-service troops for twenty years and can"t fiddle around that long without learning all about weapons from string bows to H-bombs. You"re trying to kid me-and it won"t work. A one-way weapon is impossible."
"Don"t argue with him," Harrison suggested to Baines. "He"ll never be convinced until he"s shown."
"I can see that." Jeff Baines" face creased in a slow grin. "I told you that you could have our wonder-weapon for the asking. Why don"t you ask?" "All right, I"m asking." Gleed put it without much enthusiasm. A weapon that would be presented on request, without even the necessity of first planting a minor ob, couldn"t be so mighty after all. His imaginary five thousand credits shrank to five, thence to none. "Hand it over and let me try it."
* * * Swiveling heavily on his stool, Jeff reached to the wall, removed a small, shiny plaque from its hook, pa.s.sed it across the counter.
"You may keep it," he informed. "And much good may it do you."
Gleed examined it, turning it over and over between his fingers. It was nothing more than an oblong
strip of substance resembling ivory. One side was polished and bare. The other bore three letters deeply engraved in bold style: F-I.W.
Glancing up, his features puzzled, he said, "Call this a weapon?"
"Certainly."
"Then I don"t get it." He pa.s.sed the plaque to Harrison. "Do you?"
"No." Harrison had a good look at it, spoke to Baines. "What does this, F-I.W. mean?"
"Initial-slang," informed Baines. "Made correct by common usage. It has become a world-wide motto.
You"ll see it all over the place, if you haven"t noticed it already."
"I have spotted it here and there but attached no importance to it and thought nothing of it. I remember now I"ve seen it inscribed in several places, including Seth"s and the fire depot.""It was on the sides of that bus we couldn"t empty," added Gleed. "Didn"t mean anything to me.""It means plenty," said Jeff. "Freedom-I Won"t!""That kills me," Gleed told him. "I"m stone dead already. I"ve dropped in my tracks." He watched Harrison thoughtfully pocketing the plaque. "A bit of abracadabra. What a weapon!"
"Ignorance is bliss," remarked Baines, strangely certain of himself. "Especially when you don"t know that what you"re playing with is the safety catch of something that goes bang."
"All right," challenged Gleed, taking him up on that. "Tell us how it works."
"I won"t." The grin reappeared. Baines seemed highly satisfied about something.
"That"s a fat lot of help." Gleed felt let down, especially over those momentarily hoped-for credits. "You
boast about a one-way weapon, toss across a slip of stuff with three letters on it and then go dumb. Any
guy can talk out the back of his neck. How about backing up your talk?"
"I won"t," said Baines, his grin becoming broader than ever. He favored the onlooking Harrison with a fat, significant wink.
It made something spark vividly inside Harrison"s mind. His jaw dropped, he took the plaque from his pocket, stared at it as if seeing it for the first time.
"Give it back to me," requested Baines, watching him.
Replacing it in his pocket, Harrison said very firmly, "I won"t."
Baines chuckled. "Some folk catch on quicker than others."
Resenting that remark, Gleed held his hand out to Harrison. "Let"s have another look at that thing."
"I won"t," said Harrison, meeting him eye for eye.
"Hey, that"s not the way-" Gleed"s protesting voice died out. He stood there a moment, his optics
slightly gla.s.sy while his brain performed several loops. Then, in hushed tones, he said, "Good grief!"
"Precisely," approved Baines. "Grief, and plenty of it. You were a bit slow on the uptake."
Overcome by the flood of insubordinate ideas now pouring upon him, Gleed said hoa.r.s.ely to Harrison.
"Come on, let"s get out of here. I gotta think. I gotta think some place quiet." * * * There was a tiny park with seats and lawns and flowers and a little fountain around which a small bunch of children were playing. Choosing a place facing a colorful carpet of exotic un-Terran blooms, they sat and brooded a while.
In due course, Gleed commented, "For one solitary guy it would be martyrdom, but for a whole world
-" His voice drifted off, came back. "I"ve been taking this about as far as I can make it go and the results give me the leaping fantods."
Harrison said nothing.
"F"rinstance," Gleed continued, "supposing when I go back to the ship that snorting rhinoceros Bidworthy gives me an order. I give him the frozen wolliker and say, "I won"t!" He either drops dead or throws me in the clink."
"That would do you a lot of good."
"Wait a bit-I ain"t finished. I"m in the clink, but the job still needs doing. So Bidworthy picks on someone else. The victim, being a soul-mate of mine, also donates the icy optic and says, "I won"t!" In the
clink he goes and I"ve got company. Bidworthy tries again. And again. There"s more of us warming the jug. It"ll only hold twenty. So they take over the engineer"s mess."
"Leave our mess out of this," Harrison requested.
"They take the mess," Gleed insisted, thoroughly determined to penalize the engineers. "Pretty soon it"s
crammed to the roof with I-won"ters. Bidworthy"s still raking "em in as fast as he can go-if by that time he hasn"t burst a dozen blood vessels. So they take over the Blieder dormitories."
"Why keep picking on my crowd?"
"And pile them with bodies ceiling-high," Gleed said, getting s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure out of the notion. "Until in the end Bidworthy has to get buckets and brushes and go down on his knees and do his own deck- scrubbing while Grayder, Shelton and the rest act as clink guards. By that time, His Loftiness the amba.s.sador is in the galley busily cooking for you and me, a.s.sisted by a disconcerted bunch of yes-ing pen-pushers." He had another somewhat awed look at the picture and finished, "Holy smoke!"
A colored ball rolled his way, he stooped, picked it up and held on to it. Promptly a boy of about seven ran up, eyed him gravely.
"Give me my ball, please."
"I won"t," said Gleed, his fingers firmly around it.
There was no protest, no anger, no tears. The child merely registered disappointment, turned to go away.
"Here you are, sonny." He tossed the ball.
"Thanks." Grabbing it, the other ran off.
Harrison said, "What if every living being in the Empire, all the way from Prometheus to Kaldor Four,
across eighteen hundred light-years of s.p.a.ce, gets an income-tax demand, tears it up and says, "I won"t!"?
What happens then?"
"We"d need a second universe for a pen and a third one to provide the guards."
"There would be chaos," Harrison went on. He nodded toward the fountain and the children playing around it. "But, it doesn"t look like chaos here. Not to my eyes. So that means they don"t overdo this blank refusal business. They apply it judiciously on some mutually recognized basis. What that basis might be beats me completely."
"Me, too."
An elderly man stopped near them, surveyed them hesitantly, decided to pick on a pa.s.sing youth.
"Can you tell me where I can find the roller for Martinstown?"