Complete Short Fiction, page 103
“To return to the original subject, I refused all but the guidance and weather information of the things you were willing to give. I thought some of you might be suspicious of that, but I have heard no sign of it in your words. Nevertheless, I agreed to make a voyage longer than any that has been made in recorded history to help solve your problem. You had told me how badly you needed the knowledge; none of you appeared to think that I might want the same thing, though I asked time and again for just that when I saw one or another of your machines. You refused answers to those questions, making the same excuse every time. I felt, therefore, that any way in which I could pick up some of the knowledge you people possess was legitimate. You have said, at one time or another, much about the value of what you call ‘science’ and always implied was the fact that my people did not have it. I cannot see why, if it is good and valuable to your people, it would not be equally so to mine.
“You can see what I am leading up to. I came on this voyage with exactly the same objective in my mind that was in yours when you sent me; I came to learn. I want to know the things by which you perform such remarkable acts—things which would be good for me from a selfish point of view—I do not deny that—and which would also help my people. You, Charles, lived all winter in a place that should have killed you at once, by the aid of that science; it could make as much difference in the lives of my people, I am sure you will agree.
“Therefore I offer you a new bargain. I realize that my failure to live up to the letter of the old one may make you reluctant to conclude another with me. That will be simply too bad; I make no bones about pointing out that you can do nothing else. You are not here; you cannot come here; granting that you might drop some of your explosives down here in anger, you will not do so as long as I am near this machine of yours. The agreement is simple: knowledge for knowledge. You teach me, or Dondragmer, or anyone else in my crew who has the time and ability to learn the material, all the time we are working to take this machine apart for you and transmit the knowledge it contains.”
“Just a—”
“Wait, chief.” Lackland cut short Rosten’s expostulation. “I know Barl better than you do. Let me talk.” He and Rosten could see each other in their respective screens, and for a moment the expedition’s leader simply glared. Then he realized the situation and subsided.
“Right, Charlie. Tell him.”
“Barl, you seemed to have some contempt in your tone when you referred to our excuse for not explaining our machines to you. Believe me, we were not trying to fool you. They are complicated; so complicated that the men who design and build them spend nearly half their lives first learning the laws that make them operate and the arts of their actual manufacture. We did not mean to belittle the knowledge of your people, either; it is true that we know more, but it is only because we have had longer in which to learn.
“Now, as I understand it, you want to learn about the machines in this rocket as you take it apart. Please, Barl, take my word as the sincerest truth when I tell you first that I for one could not do it, since I do not understand a single one of them; and second, that not one would do you the least good if you did comprehend it. The best I can say right now is that they are machines for measuring things that cannot be seen or heard or felt or tasted—things you would have to see in operation in other ways for a long time before you could even begin to understand. That is not meant as insult; what I say is almost as true for me, and I have grown up from childhood surrounded by and even using those forces. I do not understand them. I do not expect to understand them before I die; the science we have covers so much knowledge that no one man can even begin to learn all of it, and I must be satisfied with the field I do know—and perhaps add to it what little one man may in a lifetime.
“We cannot accept your bargain, Barl, because it is physically impossible to carry out our side of it.”
Barlennan could not smile in the human sense, and he carefully refrained from giving his own version of one. He answered as gravely as Lackland had spoken.
“You can do your part, Charles, though you do not know it.
“When I first started this trip, all the things you have just said were true, and more. I fully intended to find this rocket with your help, and then place the radios where you could see nothing and proceed to dismantle the machine itself, learning all your science in the process.
“Slowly I came to realize that all you have said is true. I learned that you were not keeping knowledge from me deliberately when you taught us so quickly and carefully about the laws and techniques used by the glider-makers on that island. I learned it still more surely when you helped Dondragmer make the differential pulley. I was expecting you to bring up those points in your speech just now; why didn’t you? They were good ones.
“It was actually when you were teaching us about the gliders that I began to have a slight understanding of what was meant by your term ‘science.’ I realized, before the end of that episode, that a device so simple you people had long since ceased to use it actually called for an understanding of more of the universe’s laws than any of my people realized existed. You said specifically at one point, while apologizing for a lack of exact information, that gliders of that sort had been used by your people more than two hundred years ago, I can guess how much more you know now—guess just enough to let me realize what I can’t know.
“But you can still do what I want. You have done a little already, in showing us the differential hoist. I do not understand it, and neither does Dondragmer who spent much more time with it; but we are both sure it is some sort of relative to the levers we have been using all our lives. We want to start at the beginning, knowing fully that we cannot learn all you know in our lifetimes. We do hope to learn enough to understand how you have found these things out. Even I can see it is not just guesswork, or even philosophizing like the learned ones who tell us that Mesklin is a bowl.
“I am willing at this point to admit you are right; but I would like to know how you found out the same fact for your own world. I am sure you knew before you left its surface and could see it all at once. I want to know why the Bree floats, and why the canoe did the same, for a while. I want to know what crushed the canoe. I want to know why the wind blows down the cleft all the time . . . no, I didn’t understand your explanation. I want to know why we are warmest in winter when we can’t see the sun for the longest time. I want to know why a fire glows, and why flame dust kills. I want my children or theirs, if I ever have any, to know what makes this radio work, and your tank, and some day this rocket. I want to know much —more than I can learn, no doubt; but if I can start my people learning for themselves, the way you must have—well, I’d be willing to stop selling at a profit.”
Neither Lackland nor Rosten found anything to say for a long moment. Rosten broke the silence.
“Barlennan, if you learned what you want, and began to teach your people, would you tell them where the knowledge came from? Do you think it would be good for them to know?”
“For some, yes; they would want to know about other worlds, and people who had used the same way to knowledge they were starting on. Others—well, we have a lot of people who let the rest pull the load for them. If they knew, they wouldn’t bother to do any learning themselves; they’d just ask for anything particular they wanted to know—as I did at first; and they’d never realize you weren’t telling them because you couldn’t. They’d think you were trying to cheat them. I suppose if I told anyone, that sort would find out sooner or later, and . . . well, I guess it would be better to let them think I’m the genius. Or Don; they’d be more likely to believe it of him.”
Rosten’s answer was brief and to the point.
“You’ve made a deal.”
XX.
A gleaming skeleton of metal rose eight feet above a flat-topped mound of rock and earth whose sides were dotted with curved plates of similar material and various weirdly complex assemblies that might have been vital organs of the glittering monster that was being dismembered. Mesklinites were busily attacking another row of plates whose upper fastenings had just been laid bare. Others were pushing the freshly removed dirt and pebbles to the edge of the mound. Still others moved back and forth along a well marked road that led off into the desert; those who approached dragging flat, wheeled carts loaded with supplies, those departing usually hauling similar carts empty. The scene was one of activity; practically everyone seemed to have a definite purpose. There were two radio sets in evidence now, one on the mound where an Earthman was directing the dismantling from his distant vantage point and the other some distance away.
Dondragmer was in front of the second set, engaged in animated conversation with the distant being he could not see. The sun still circled endlessly, but was very gradually descending now and swelling very, very slowly.
“I am afraid,” the mate said, “that we will have serious trouble checking on what you tell us about the bending of light. Reflection I can understand; the mirrors I made from metal plates of your rocket made that very clear. It is too bad that the device from which you let us take the lens was dropped in the process; we have nothing like your glass, I am afraid.”
“Even a reasonably large piece of the lens will do, Don,” the voice came from the speaker. It was not Lackland’s voice; he was an expert teacher, he had found, but sometimes yielded the microphone to a specialist. “Any piece will bend the light, and even make an image—but wait; that comes later. Try to find what’s left of that hunk of glass, Don, if your gravity didn’t powder it when the set landed.” Dondragmer turned from the set with a word of agreement; then turned back as he thought of another point.
“Perhaps you could tell what this ‘glass’ is made of, and whether it takes very much heat? We have good hot fires, you know. Also there is the material set over the Bowl—ice, I think Charles called it. Would that do?”
“Yes, I know about your fires, though I’m darned if I see how you do burn plants in a hydrogen atmosphere, even with a little meat thrown in. For the rest, ice should certainly do, if you can find any. I don’t know what the sand of your river is made of, but you can try melting it in one of your hottest fires and see what comes out. I certainly don’t guarantee anything, though; I simply say that on Earth and the rest of the worlds I know ordinary sand will make a sort of glass, which is greatly improved with other ingredients. Fm darned if I can see either how to describe those ingredients to you or suggest where they might be found, though.”
“Thank you; I will have someone try the fire. In the meantime, I will search for a piece of lens, though I fear the blow when it struck left little usable. We should not have tried to take the device apart near the edge of the mound; the thing you called a ‘barrel’ rolled much too easily.”
Once more the mate left the radio, and immediately encountered Barlennan.
“It’s about time for your watch to get on the plates,” the captain said. “I’m going down to the river. Is there anything your work needs?”
Dondragmer mentioned the suggestion about sand.
“You can carry up the little bit I’ll need, I should think, without getting the fire too hot; or did you plan on a full load of other things?”
“No plans; I’m taking the trip mainly for fun. Now that the spring wind has died out and we get breezes in every old direction, a little navigation practice might be useful. What good is a captain who can’t steer his ship?”
“Fair enough. Did the Flyers tell you what this deck of machines was for?”
“They did pretty well, but, if I were really convinced about this space-bending business, I’d have swallowed it more easily. They finished up with the old line about words not really being enough to describe it. What else beside words can you use, in the name of the Suns?”
“I’ve been wondering myself; I think it’s another aspect of this quantity-code they call mathematics. I think it’s something for the next generation, myself, though they insist we use some of it in our navigation and the philosophers used more when they found the curvature of Mesklin. I like mechanics best myself; you can do something with it from the very beginning.” He waved an arm toward one of the carts and another toward the place where the differential pulley was lying.
“It would certainly seem so. We’ll have a lot to take home—and some, I guess, we’d better not be too hasty in spreading about.” He gestured at what he meant, and the mate agreed soberly. “Nothing to keep us from playing with it now, though.”
The captain went his way, and Dondragmer looked after him with a mixture of seriousness and amusement. He rather wished that Reejaaren were around; he had never liked the islander, and perhaps now he would be a little less convinced that the Bree’s crew was composed exclusively of liars.
That sort of reflection was a waste of time, however. He had work to do. Pulling plates off the metal monster was less fun than being told how to do experiments, but his half of the bargain had to be fulfilled. He started up the mound, calling his watch after him.
Barlennan went on to the Bree. She was already prepared for the trip, two sailors aboard and her fire hot. The great expanse of shimmering, nearly transparent fabric amused him; like the mate, he was thinking of Reejaaren, though in this case it was of what the interpreter’s reaction would be if he saw the use to which his material was being put. Not possible to trust sewn seams, indeed! Barlennan’s own people knew a thing or two, even without friendly Flyers to tell them.
He had patched sails with the stuff before they were ten thousand miles from the island where it had been obtained, and his seams had held even in front of the valley of wind.
He slipped through the opening in the rail, made sure it was secured behind him, and glanced into the firepit, which was lined with metal foil from a condenser the Flyers had donated. All the cordage seemed sound and taut; he nodded to the crewmen. One heaped another few sticks on the glowing, flameless fire in the pit; the other released the moorings.
Gently, her forty-foot sphere of fabric bulging with hot air, the new Bree lifted from the plateau and drifted river ward on the light breeze.
THE END
Ground
They were inside the sun, in a temperature of 900 Kelvin. With the refrigerators out there was only one wild chance to pull through.
The little ship plunged into the star.
If anyone had asked Jack Elder to justify his uneasiness, he could not have obliged. He might even have gone so far as to deny any such feeling; but he would not have been speaking the truth. He had every confidence in the refrigerators of the Wraith, untried as they were; he had helped design them; but the phrase, “Inside a star,” which he had used so casually in New York a few short weeks ago, now seemed to carry a more tangible—and deadly—implication.
Admittedly, the words had been a half truth, designed to impress an already awe-struck audience; the fringes of VV Cephei’s far-flung atmosphere did technically constitute a portion of the giant sun, and he was certainly well within those fringes, but the environment was certainly not the raging hell of an atomic furnace which an unwary listener to his words might have been led to suppose. There was actually solid matter outside the spherical hull of the tiny interstellar traveler.
Elder sneaked a glance at the other men in the small cabin. Dressier, who had collaborated with him in the design of the heat-distributor, was looking at the recording dials pertaining to the device with every appearance of satisfaction. Snell, the astrophysicist, was sitting before the control board of his weird mass spectrograph that was mounted outside the hull, and periodically working knobs and switches that changed plates and altered the sensitivity regions of the device. He had some abstruse theory of isotope distribution in stellar atmospheres, and had come with the Wraith on her own test run solely to get his own data.
Calloway, the pilot, had no regular duties while the ship was in free fall. He was engaged in a pastime which increased Elder’s uneasiness almost to the breaking point. Hanging before one of the outside view screens—the Wraith had no direct vision ports, as the electronic heat distributor required an unbroken conductor for ah outer surface—the was gazing with interest at the fuzzy red area that was the image of VV Cephei’s core, some three-quarters of a billion miles distant. Elder gave the screen a single glance, and returned to his own work. The dials before him were in the green without exception, and formed a much more comforting view. If Calloway must look at stars, he thought, why not examine the primary of the VV Cephei system, in the opposite direction? True, the blue star was not much farther away than the core of the red giant, but at least the Wraith was comfortably outside it.
There was little speech. The ship was in free fall, in an orbit that would carry it through a “grazing” periastron point, about one hundred million miles inside the arbitrary fringe of the stellar atmosphere. It had a speed far in excess of the star’s parabolic velocity at this distance—the orbit was practically a straight line, and they would be within the atmosphere only about three weeks—but it was considered adequate for a first test. The density of the atmosphere at this altitude was known to be neglible, and they expected no serious alteration of their path by friction with the particles of liquid and solid matter, and molecules of gas, which were known to be present.
Snell had assured them of this; there were certainly, he said, no solid or liquid objects to be encountered whose dimensions would much exceed a micron or two, and even those must be appallingly rare to permit such a low general density. Everyone was perfectly at ease, therefore, with the exception of Elder . . .
Until a note like the clanging of an immense gong brought the four men abruptly to an erect attitude, to hang poised for seconds in startled silence as the metallic echoes reverberated through the spherical hull and gradually died away.
