John Rackham (12 page)

"You'd
better take that. Here, I'll show you how the cutter works." He took a
length of pressure tubing and connected it at one end to the heavy cylinder,
the other end to the butt of the tool, turned valves, pressed a stud, and the
tool whined. Bragan held it, studied it curiously. It had a semicircle muzzle
like a comb, and when the motor ran, a circular toothed blade skimmed over the
teeth of the comb. Shears!

"Doesn't it pull away to the
right?" he wondered, and Hork nodded.

"That's
the trick of it, Zorgan. You bear the effort against that. You have seen this
kind of thing before?"

"Similar
idea, but we do it with a straight comb and straight blades that oscillate to
and fro. There's a spinning drive just the same, but it operates a rocker-arm;
do you know what I mean? I don't see that it's any better than this, though.
Just different." What he didn't remark on, although it impressed him, was
the fact that in this stubby handle he held was a hydrogen-burning fuel-cell
producing electricity enough to drive that motor, which was a way of producing
and using electricity that he had never seen so cunningly done before.

He
looked up as the bushes tossed and Ryth came through lugging a protesting
animal something bigger than a sheep, but looking more like a cross between a
goat and a mule, with useful and angry teeth and a thick mat of gray fleece.
Hork went forward, grabbed competently, and made quick and expert passes with a
cord, then delivered the victim to Bragan's feet.

"Start
here," he advised, slapping the root of the tail, "and run right up
the spine to the neck, then down one side first, then the other."

Bragan
took a moment to steady his hand, and his breathing, and made a start. Those
two glimpses of Ryth in nothing but a skimpy white cashmere patch about her
loins had shaken him badly. It was obvious that the woman didn't know the power
she had. Hork didn't seem to see anything amiss either as he watched Dragan's
inexpert efforts.

"Don't
be afraid of hurting the mereen," he urged. "The blades cannot cut
unless you force them into the flesh on purpose. A moment, when I have stringed
the next one, and I will show you." Ryth wa$ back with another snarling
beast. He grabbed and threw and fastened swiftly, then took the shears.

"Like this; see?" He plied the
whirring blades and the thick mat of wool peeled away down to the belly line. "Now
for the other side. Never mind the shoulders, neck and legs. Leave those, or
the merreen will be able to push through the shrub-fence."

"Is that why Ryth took
off her tunic?"

"Try
getting through those shrubs with one on, and see," Hork chuckled.
"There are hook-thoms that would tear the cloth to pieces in no time. In
any case, we do not wear clothing in the fields when working. It is easier this
way; healthier, too. And clothes last longer."

It was all very rational, Bragan thought, but
he imagined the prospect ahead and the sweat began to run down his face, not
all from the strain of holding the shears and guiding them through the fleece.
Hork kept moving. The shorn beasts had to be freed and turned back into the
fenced enclosure, and Ryth kept coming with more, glossy with sweat but
seemingly without any thought of fatigue. And Bragan couldn't complain, because
he knew he had the easy part, sitting down. So he set his teeth, ignored his
aches and concentrated on shearing. He got better at it by degrees.

As Ryth said, sparing a moment to come and
inspect the fleeces critically, "Not good, but you will improve with time.
I
think perhaps there are six or seven more yet
to be caught. Then I will go ahead and prepare for the evening meal."

Her
timing was pretty accurate. By the time Bragan had steered the shears through
the last thicknesses of the last fleece the red glow of sunset was staining the
hillside. Hork had already knotted the short cords into a long line. He freed
the last snarling beast, herded it through the fence, then added the cords to
his string and made two rough bales of the fleeces.
  
He adjusted them across his shoulders to
take the bite out of the thin cord between the two great bundles. Then, with a
grin and grunt, he hoisted the two bales and took them like a milkmaid carries
a bucket-yoke.

"If
you'll hand me the stool," he said, "can you manage the gas-bottle
and shears?"

Bragan
stood and stretched and said, "I can try. Where tc?"

"Just follow me." Hork went
plodding away down the hill. Bragan followed wearily until they reached the
first building, a long low shed. Copying Hork, he dumped his burden gladly.
Then the youth grinned and waved him on.

"This
is the best part of the day," he declared, and Bragan followed him past
the buildings and down into a little gully. At the far end a small stream
chuckled in a bend and made a tempting pool. Hork dropped his tunic, took a
moment to skin out of his woolen drawers and ran to hurl himself into the
water. Bragan went after him promptly. It was good to feel the cool water soak
away the grime and ache. He ducked right under blissfully.

"Ryth
will be along in a moment," Hork promised, "with oils and towels, and
fresh clothes. And then supper!"

Ryth came with a jar, and an armful of clean
white stuff, which she put down carefully on a flat rock and then, just as they
had done, skinned out of her clothes and threw herself into the water with
them.

"I would not five in the city for
anything," she declared, surfacing happily. "They have no pleasure as
simple and as rewarding as this."

And Bragan, to his own surprise, felt that he
agreed with her. Hard work and fresh air and the utter sincerity of these two,
had peeled away some constricting layer of his being so that he felt new. It
was a pleasure, in a while, to scramble out on the bank and share with them the
business of making a foaming lather of the oil from the jar, even to let Ryth
take hold of his neck-muscles at the back and knead them strongly.

"This
is where it gets you," she said. "I know. Usually I am the one who
sits and shears while Hork handles the mereens. There, that feels good, doesn't
it? And now, one more plunge to wash away the oil, and then dry and clean clothing.
And supper! It will be ready."

Bragan discovered a huge appetite, and a
sense of satisfaction on top of being well-fed. To round it all off, Ryth
produced a jar of stuff that had a sour-sweet flavor not unlike apple wine.

"We usually sit for a while on the grass
outside," she said, "and look at the sky-glow, and the stars. Perhaps
you will not care for that, since it might remind you of home."

"I'd
like it fine, only I can't guarantee how long I can keep awake, not after
today, and this apple-jack."

"A pity," Hork commented. "It
is the time when we talk about things. I was minded to ask you, Zorgan; do you
really think it is impossible to beat your big fleet?"

"My
name is Bragan. Denzil Bragan. And it is not impossible to beat Zorgan—in the
sense that nothing is impossible. Impossible is a big word, like forever. A
force bigger and stronger than Zorgan—could defeat Zorgan. That's all there is
to it. And that's the only way. Now—if you will show me where I am to
sleep?"

VII

T
he
week
that followed was the
longest seven days Bragan had ever known. Not even in the timeless vastness of
space, where pure boredom dragged out the hours, had time seemed so long. All
that kept him going was the knowledge that he
had
to, and that the torture was no more than a whole array of muscles and
sinews that he had never abused so much before. He made himself into two
people. One was a groaning, aching, protesting mass of straining effort that
fought its way out of a crude cot and rough blanket in one corner of Hork's
room every morning with daylight's first sign; a bleary-eyed thing that ate,
and worked, hoisting, shoving, reaching and cutting and carrying; that fell
into cool water each evening to get clean, and fell asleep almost before it
could dull its hunger at night. That was one creature.

The
other was his withdrawn, never-resting mind, watching points, storing up
fragments of knowledge, listening critically to Hork and Ryth, to the way they
talked, to the clumsy way in which they kept hauling around their occasional
conversations to the same topic: how to beat Zorgan. They were not very good
at dissimulation. It was painfully plain that they wanted to milk him of any
valuable knowledge he might have, and the thought made him want to laugh at
them.

Hork
put it bluntly one noon, as the three of them sprawled on a patch of grass and
munched their midday snack before making a further attack on a mass of standing
canes which carried a berry they called bilbys.

"When
Father Mordin called the roll," he said, "all the other men claimed
some special skill of some kind. What's yours?"

"I'm
a strategist." Bragan waited for the inevitable next question and thought
it through carefully. "You are bigger than me," he said.
"Heavier and stronger. If it ever came to
a
struggle between us, you would defeat me."

Hork thought about it.
"Why should we struggle?"

"Suppose
I had
a
long knife and tried to kill you with it. And
you saw, and grabbed a knife too, and tried to stop me." Hork scowled and
nodded at the alien picture. Bragan went on, "Again we would be unmatched,
yes? But if I had skill with a knife, and you hadn't, then I would defeat you—
for all that you are bigger and stronger than me. See?" Hork took a while
to grasp that. Bragan waited until he showed signs of understanding then went
on again. "Put away the knife. Suppose it is just the two of us as we are,
with nothing. Suppose I am exactly the same size as you, and we are standing
face to face. A game. I must try to put you down on the ground, and you must try
to do the same with me. Can you imagine that? Now, both are evenly matched,
equal to each other. What happens next?"

"There
is no way of telling," Ryth suggested. "If two men are equal and they
play this game, who can tell what will happen? And why should they waste time
and strength like that?"

"Trust
a woman to ask an unnecessary question," Bragan growled. "There isn't
any 'why would they?" That is contained in the supposition. But you are
right. If they were equal the contest would be stalemate. But if one is more
skilled at the game than the other, he will win. That skill is one kind of
strategy. I am not so big, nor so strong as you, Hork, but if you and I stood
and played this game I have just described, I would beat you. Because I know
which things to do to hit your weak places."

"I'd
like to see that." Hark scrambled to his feet, and Bragan got up too,
though not so vigorously. "I am to try and put you down on the
grass?"

"Right.
And I am going to stop you—by putting you down first!"

It was, Bragan thought, a shame to do it.
Hork was strong, and fast, but it was glaringly obvious he had never fought
anyone before. By the time he had hit the grass solidly three times in quick
succession he grew wary, and Bragan held up a hand for peace.

"That's simple stuff, ignorance coming
to grief against skill. It's only the start of strategy. As you can see, it
won't work much longer because you're getting careful now. If I had been
meaning to kill you I would have done it the first time, or the second, before
you had a chance to learn. And that, also, is strategy. Hit the other man when
he doesn't expect it, when he is off-guard. Find his weak spots and hit them.
Like this—" and he took Hork's right hand swiftly, got a hard grip in a
certain manner, and the big youth came up on his toes as the first anguish
racked him. "So long as I hold you this way I can make you behave;
see?" and he let go the hold.

Hork
stood back, flexing his fingers and staring. "That is a new kind of
knowledge to me," he muttered. "Will you teach me that trick?"

"If
you like. But what good will it be to you? You are not a fighting man. Your
people are not fighters. I am. All Zorgan is trained to be like this. That's
why, with only six small ships, we felt certain we could grip your planet the
way I gripped you just now, and make you bend. We failed only because I
misjudged certain things about you. I was responsible for that mistake.
Strategy is 'the best way to beat the other side' and is my special skill. I
failed because I didn't know enough about you."

Hork
dropped to the grass again; his brow furrowed as he pondered over the novelty,
but Ryth had seen beyond the simple fact into the larger implication. "If
we had that kind of skill," she said, "we could beat Zorgan!"