Big Book of Science Fiction (16 page)

“Nuts.” Fats was grinning, good
nature restored. He knew Slim meant it as a crack, but it didn’t bother him;
what was wrong with treating Marshies and monkeys like what they were? “Whatcha
got there, monkey? More pictures that mean nothing?”

Lhirt nodded in imitation of
their assent gesture and held out the roll to Slim; Fats’ attitude was no
longer unfriendly, but he was an unknown quantity, and Slim seemed the more
interested. “Pictures that mean much, I hope. Here is Nra, twenty-nine, under
sodium.”

“Eight column periodic table,”
Slim told Fats. “At least, it looks like one. Get me the handbook, will you?
Ummm. Under sodium, No. 29. Sodium, potassium, copper. And it’s No. 29, all
right. That it, Lhin?”

Lhin’s eyes were blazing with
triumph. Grace to the Great Ones. “Yes, it is copper. Perhaps you have some?
Even a gram, perhaps?”

“Ten thousand grams, if you like.
According to your notions, we’re lousy with the stuff. Help yourself.”

Fats cut in. “Sure, monkey, we
got copper, if that’s the stuff you’ve been yelling about. What’ll you pay for
it?”

“Pay?”

“Sure, give in return. We help
you; you help us. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

It hadn’t occurred to Lhin, but
it did seem fair. But what had he to give? And then he realized what was in the
man’s mind. For the copper, he was to work, digging out and purifying the
radioactives that gave warmth and light and life to the crater, so painfully
brought into being when the place was first constructed, transmuted to meet the
special needs of the people who were to live there. And after him, his sons and
their sons, mining and sweating for Earth, and being paid in barely enough
copper to keep Earth supplied with laborers. Fats’ mind filled again with
dreams of the other Earth creature. For that, he would doom a race to life
without pride or hope or accomplishment. Lhin found no understanding in it.
There were so many of those creatures on Earth—why should his enslavement be
necessary? Nor was enslavement all. Eventually, doom was as certain that way as
the other, once Earth was glutted with the radioactives, or when the supply
here dropped below the vital point, great as the reserve was. He shuddered
under the decision forced upon him.

Slim’s hand fell on his shoulder.
“Fats has things slightly wrong, Lhin. Haven’t you, Fats?”

There was something in Slim’s
hand, something Lhin knew dimly was a weapon. The other man squirmed, but his
grin remained.

“You’re touched, Slim, soft.
Maybe you believe all this junk about other races’ equality, but you won’t kill
me for it. I’m standing pat—I’m not giving away my copper.”

And suddenly Slim was grinning,
too, and putting the weapon back. “Okay, don’t. Lhin can have my copper. There’s
plenty on the ship in forms we can spare, and don’t forget I own a quarter of
it.”

Fats’ thoughts contained no
answer to that. He mulled it over slowly, then shrugged. Slim was right enough
about it, and could do as he wanted with his share. Anyhow— “Okay, have it your
way. I’ll help you pry it off wherever it is, or dig it out. How about that
wire down in the engine locker?”

Lhin stood silently watching them
as they opened a small locker and rummaged through it, studying the engines and
controls with half his mind, the other half quivering with ecstasy at the
thought of copper—not just a handful, but all he could carry, in pure form,
easily turned into digestible sulphate with acids he had already prepared for
his former attempt at collecting it. In a year, the crater would be populated
again, teeming with life. Perhaps three or four hundred sons left, and as they
multiplied, more and yet more.

A detail of the hookup he was
studying brought that part of his mind uppermost, and he tugged at Slim’s
trouser leg. “That . . . that ... is not good, is it?”

“Huh? No, it isn’t, fella. That’s
what brought us here. Why?”

“Then, without radioactives, I
can pay. I will fix it.” A momentary doubt struck him. “That is to pay, is it
not?”

Fats heaved a coil of
wonderful-smelling wire out of the locker, wiped off sweat, and nodded. “That’s
to pay, all right, but you let those things alone. They’re bad enough, already,
and maybe even Slim can’t fix it.”

“I can fix.”

“Yeah. What school did you get
your degree in electronics from? Two hundred feet in this coil, makes fifty for
him. You gonna give it all to him, Slim?”

“Guess so.” Slim was looking at
Lhin doubtfully, only half-watching as the other measured and cut the wire. “Ever
touched anything like that before, Lhin? Controls for the ion feed and
injectors are pretty complicated in these ships. What makes you think you can
do it—unless your people had things like this and you studied the records.”

Lhin fought for words as he tried
to explain. His people had nothing like that—their atomics had worked from a
different angle, since uranium was almost nonexistent on the moon, and they had
used a direct application of it. But the principles were plain to him, even
from what he could see outside; he could feel the way it worked in his head.

“I feel. When I first grew, I could
fix that. It is the way I think, not the way I learn, though I have read all
the records. For three hundred million of your years, my people have learned
it—now I feel it.”

“Three hundred million years! I
knew your race was old when you told me you were born talking and reading,
but—galloping dinosaurs!”

“My people saw those things on
your world, yes,” Lhin assured him solemnly. “Then I shall fix?”

Slim shook his head in confusion
and handed over a tool kit without another word. “Three hundred million years,
Fats, and during almost all that time they were further ahead than we are now.
Figure that one out. When we were little crawling things living off dinosaur
eggs, they were flitting from planet to planet—only I don’t suppose they could
stay very long; six times normal gravity for them. And now, just because they
had to stay on a light world and their air losses made them gather here where
things weren’t normal, Lhin’s all that’s left.”

“Yeah, and how does that make him
a mechanic?”

“Instinct. In the same amount of
time, look at the instincts the animals picked up—what to eat, enemy smells,
caring for their young ... He has an instinct for machinery; he doesn’t know
all about it, probably, but he can instinctively feel how a thing should work.
Add to that the collection of science records he was showing me and the amount
of reading he’s probably done, and there should be almost nothing he couldn’t
do to a machine.”

There wasn’t much use in arguing,
Fats decided, as he watched what was happening. The monkey either fixed things
or they never would leave now. Lhin had taken snips and disconnected the
control box completely; now he was taking that to pieces, one thing at a time.
With a curious deftness, he unhooked wires, lifted out tubes, and uncoupled
transformers.

It seemed simple enough to him.
They had converted energy from the atomic fuel, and they used certain forces to
ionize matter, control the rate of ionization, feed the ions to the rocket
tubes, and force them outward at high speed through helices. An elementary
problem in applied electronics, to govern the rate and control the ionization
forces.

With small quick hands he bent
wires into coils, placed other coils in relation, and coupled a tube to the
combination. Around the whole, other coils and tubes took shape, then a long
feeder connected to the pipe that carried the compound to be ionized, and bus
bars to the energy intakes. The injectors that handled the feeding of ions were
needlessly complicated, but he let them alone, since they were workable as they
were. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes.

“It will work now. But use care
when you first try it. Now it makes all work, not a little as it did before.”

Slim inspected it. “That all?
What about this pile of stuff you didn’t use?” “There was no need. It was very
poor. Now it is good.” As best he could he explained to Slim what happened when
it was used now; before, it would have taken a well-trained technician to
describe, even with the complicated words at his command. But what was there
now was the product of a science that had gone beyond the stumbling
complications of first attempts. Something was to be done, and was done, as
simply as possible. Slim’s only puzzle was that it hadn’t been done that way in
the first place-a normal reaction, once the final simplification is reached. He
nodded. .

“Good. Fats, this is the
business. You’ll get about 99.99 percent efficiency now, instead of the 20
percent maximum before. You’re all right, Lhin.”

Fats knew nothing of electronics,
but it had sounded right as Lhin explained, and he made no comment. Instead, he
headed for the control room. “Okay, we’ll leave here, then. So long, monkey.”

Slim gathered up the wire and
handed it to Lhin, accompanying him to the air lock. On the ground, as the
locks closed, the Moon man looked up and managed an Earth smile. “I shall open
the doors above for you to go through. And you are paid, and all is fair, not
so? Then—so long, Slim. The Great Ones love you, that you have given my people
back to me.”

“Adios,” Slim answered, and
waved, just before the doors came shut. “Maybe we’ll be back sometime and see
how you make out.”

~ * ~

Back
in the cave, Lhin fondled the copper and waited for the sounds the rockets
would make, filled with mixed emotions and uncertainties. The copper was pure
ecstasy to him, but there were thoughts in Fats’ mind which were not all clear.
Well, he had the copper for generations to come; what happened to his people
now rested on the laps of the Great Ones.

He stood outside the entrance,
watching the now-steady rocket blast upward and away, carrying with it the fate
of his race. If they told of the radioactives, slavery and extinction. If they
remained silent, perhaps a return to former greatness, and passage might be
resumed to other planets, long deserted even at the height of their progress;
but now planets bearing life and intelligence instead of mere jungles. Perhaps,
in time, and with materials bought from other worlds with ancient knowledge,
even a solution that would let them restore their world to its ancient glory,
as they had dreamed before hopelessness and the dark wings of a race’s night
had settled over them.

As he watched, the rocket
spiraled directly above him, cutting the light off and on with a shadow like
the beat of wings from the mists of antiquity, when winged life had filled the
air of the moon. An omen, perhaps, those sable wings that reached up and passed
through the roof as he released the slides, then went skimming out, leaving all
clear behind. But whether a good omen or ill, he had not decided.

He carried the copper wire back
to the nursery.

And on the ship, Slim watched
Fats wiggle and try to think, and there was amusement on his face. “Well, was
he good? As good as any human, perhaps?”

“Yeah. All right, better. I’ll
admit anything you want. He’s as good as I am—maybe he’s better. That satisfy
you?”

“No.” Slim was beating the iron
while it was hot. “What about those radioactives?”

Fats threw more power into the
tubes, and gasped as the new force behind the rockets pushed him back into his
seat. He eased up gently, staring straight ahead. Finally he shrugged and
turned back to Slim.

“Okay, you win. The monkey keeps
his freedom and I keep my lip buttoned. Satisfied now?”

“Yeah.” Slim was more than satisfied.
To him, also, things seemed an omen of the future, and proof that idealism was
not altogether folly. Some day the wings of dark prejudice and contempt for
others might lift from all Earth’s Empire, as they were lifting from Fats’
mind. Perhaps not in his time, but eventually; and intelligence, not race,
would rule.

“Well satisfied, Fats,” he said. “And
you don’t need to worry about losing too much. We’ll make all the money we can
ever spend from the new principles of Lhin’s hookup; I’ve thought of a dozen
applications already. What do you figure on doing with your share?”