Deathworld Vol2 Part 6

He lifted her chin, and the dumb obedience in her eyes made him wince.

"Can't we forget about the slavery bit? We are in this thing together and we'll get out of it together."

"We will escape, I know it. You will kill all the d'zertanoj and release your slaves and lead us home again where we can march and find krenoj, far from this terrible place."

"Some girls are sure easy to please. That is roughly what I had in mind, except when we get out of here we are going in the other direction, as far away from your krenoj crowd as I can get."

Ijale listened attentively, stirring the soup with one hand and scratching inside her leather wrappings with the other. Jason found himself scratching as well, and realized from the sore spots on his skin that he had been doing an awful lot of this since he had been dragged out of the ocean of this inhospitable planet.

"Enough is enough!" he exploded, and went over and hammered on the door. "This place is a far cry from civilization as I know it, but that is no reason why we can't be as comfortable as possible." Chains and bolts rattled outside the door and Narsisi pushed his gloom-ridden face in.

'Why do you cry out? What is wrong?"

"I need some water, lots of it."

"But you have water," Narsisi said, puzzled, and pointed to a stone crock in the corner. "There is water there enough for days."

"By your standards, Nars old boy, not mine. I want at least ten times as much as that, and I want it now. And some soap, if there is such stuff in this barbaric place."

There was a good deal of argument involved, but Jason finally got his way by explaining that the water was needed for religious rites, to make sure that he would not fail in the work tomorrow. It came in a varied collection of containers, along with a shallow bowl full of powerful soft soap..

"We're in business," Jason chortled. "Take your clothes off-I have a surprise for you."

"Yes, Jason," Ijale said, smiled happily and lying down on her back.

"No! You're going to get a bath. Don't you know what a bath is?"

"No," she said, and shuddered. "It sounds evil."

"Over here, and off with the clothes," he ordered, poking at a hole in the floor. "This should serve as a drain-at least the water went away when I poured some into it."

The water was warmed on the stove, but Ijale still crouched against the wall and shuddered when he poured it over her. She screamed when he rubbed the slippery soap into her hair; however, he continued, with his hand over her mouth so that she wouldn't bring in the guards. He rubbed the soap into his own hair too, and his scalp tingled delightfully with the refreshing treatment. Some of the soap went in his ears, m.u.f.fling them, so that the first intimation he had that the door was opened was the sound of Mikah's hoa.r.s.e shout. He was standing in the doorway, finger pointed, and shaking with wrath, and Narsisi was standing behind him, peering over Mikah's shoulder with fascination at this weird religious rite.

"Degradation!" Mikah thundered. "You force this poor creature to bend to your will, humiliate her, strip her clothes from her, and gaze upon her, though you are not united in lawful wedlock." He shielded his eyes from the sight with a raised arm. "You are evil, Jason, a demon of evil, and must be brought to justice-"

"Out!" Jason roared, and spun Mikah about and started him through the door with one of his practiced Ch'aka kicks. "The only evil here is in your mind, you snooping scut. I'm giving the girl the first scrubbing of her life, and you should be giving me a medal for bringing sanitation to the natives, instead of howling like that."

He pushed them both out the door and shouted at Narsisi: "I wanted this slave, but not now! Lock him up until morning, then bring him back." He slammed the door and made a mental note to get hold of a bolt to be placed on this side as well.

Ijale was shivering, and Jason rinsed off the suds with warm water and gave her a clean piece of fur to dry herself with. Her body, now that the dirt had been removed, looked young and strong, it was firm breasted and wide-hipped- Then he recalled Mikah's accusations and, muttering angrily to himself, he turned away and stripped and scrubbed himself thoroughly, then used the last of the water to rinse out his clothes. The unaccustomed feeling of cleanliness raised his morale again, and he was humming as he blew out the lamp and finished drying himself in the darkness. He lay down and pulled up the sleeping furs, and was making plans for tackling the engine in the morning when Ijale's warm body pressed up against his, instantly driving away all thoughts of mechanical engineering.

"Here I am," she said, quite unnecessarily.

"Yes," he said, and coughed, for he was having some difficulty talking.

"That's not really what I had in mind with the bath-"

"You are not too old. So what is wrong?" She sounded shocked.

"It's just that I don't want to take advantage, you must understand. . ." He was a little confused.

"What do you mean? You are one of those that doesn't like girls!" She started to cry and he could feel her body shaking.

'When in Rome-" he sighed, and patted her back.

There were more krenoj for breakfast, but Jason was feeling too good physically to mind. He was scrubbed pink and clean, and the itching was gone even from his sprouting beard. The metalcioth of his Pyrran coverall had dried almost as soon as it had been washed, so he was wearing clean clothes as well.

Ijale was still recovering from the traumatic effects of her bath, but she looked positively attractive with her skin cleaned and her hair washed and combed a bit.

He would have to find some of the local cloth for her, for it would be a shame to ruin the good work by letting her get back into the badly cured skins she was used to wearing.

It was with a sensation of positive good feeling that he bellowed for the door to be opened and stamped through the cool morning to his place 0f labor.

Mikah was already there, looking scruffy and angry as he rattled his chains. Jason gave him the friendliest of smiles, which only rubbed salt into the other's moral wounds.

"Leg-irons for him, too," Jason ordered. "And do it fast. We have a big job to do today." He turned back to the sealed engine, rubbing his hands together with antic.i.p.ation.

The concealing hood was made of thin metal that could not hide many secrets. He carefully scratched away some of the paint and discovered a crimped and soldered joint where the sides met, but no other revealing marks. After some time spent tapping all over with his ear pressed to the metal, he was sure that the hood was just what he had thought it was when he first examined the thing: a double-walled metal container filled with liquid. Puncture it and you were dead.

It was there merely to hide the secrets of the engine, and served no other function. Yet it had to be pa.s.sed to service the steam engine-or did it? The construction was roughly cubical, and the hood covered only five sides. What about the sixth, the base?

"Now you're thinking, Jason," he said to himself, and knelt down to examine it. A wide f.l.a.n.g.e, apparently of cast iron, projected all around, and was penetrated by four large bolt holes. The protective casing seemed to be soldered to the base, but there must be stronger concealed attachments, for it would not move even after he carefully scratched away some of the solder at the base.

Therefore the answer had to be on the sixth side.

"Over here, Mikah," he called, and the man detached himself reluctantly from the warmth of the stove and shuffled up. "Come close and look at this medieval motive power while we talk, as if we are discussing business. Are you going to co-operate with me?"

"I do not want to, Jason. I am afraid that you will soil me with your touch, as you have others."

"Well, you're not so clean now-"

"I do not mean physically."

'Well, I do. You could certainly do with a bath and a good shampoo. I'm not worried about the state of your soul; you can battle that out on your own time. But if you will work with me I'll find a way to get us out of this place and to the city that made this engine, because if there is a way off this planet we'll find it only in the city."

"I know that, yet still I hesitate."

"Small sacrifices now for the greater good later. Isn't the entire purpose of this trip to get me back to justice? You're not going to accomplish that by rotting out the rest of your life as a slave."

"You are the devil's advocate the way you twist my conscience-but what you say is true. I will help you here so that we can escape."

"Fine. Now get to work. Take Narsisi and have him round up at least three good-sized poles, the kind we were chained to in the pumping gang. Bring them back here, along with a couple of shovels."

Slaves carried the poles only as far as the outside of the skin walls, for Edipon would not admit them inside, and it was up to Jason and Mikah to drag them laboriously to the site. The d'zertanoj, who never did physical labor, thought it very funny when Jason suggested that they help. Once the poles were in position by the engine, Jason dug channels beneath it and forced them under.

When this was done he took turns with Mikah in digging out the sand beneath, until the engine stood over a pit, supported only by the poles. Jason let himself down and examined the bottom of the machine. It was smooth and featureless.

Once more he scratched away the paint with careful precision, until it was cleared around the edges. Here the solid metal gave way to solder and he picked at this until he discovered that a piece of sheet metal had been soldered at the edges and fastened to the bedplate. "Very tricky, these Appsalanoj," he said to himself, and attacked the solder with a knife blade. When one end was loose he slowly pulled the sheet of metal away, making sure that there was nothing attached to it, and that it had not been b.o.o.by-trapped in any way. It came off easily enough and clanged down into the pit. The revealed surface was smooth hard metal.

"Enough for one day," Jason said, climbing out of the pit and brushing off his hands. It was now almost dark. "We've accomplished enough for now, and I want to think a bit before I go ahead. So far, luck has been on our side, but I don't think it should be this easy. I hope you brought your suitcase with you, Mikah, because you're moving in with me."

"Never! A sink of sin, depravity. .

Jason looked him coldly in the eye, and with each word he spoke he stabbed him in the chest with his finger to drive home the point: "You are moving in with me because that is essential to our plans. And if you'll stop referring to my moral weaknesses I'll stop talking about yours. Now come on."

Living with Mikah Samon was trying, but it was just barely possible.

Mikah made Ijale and Jason go to the far wall and turn their backs and promise not to look while he bathed behind a screen of skins. They did so, but Jason exacted a small revenge by telling Ijale jokes so that they t.i.ttered together and Mikah would be sure they were laughing at him. The screen of skins remained after the bath, and was reinforced, and Mikah retired behind it to sleep.

The following morning, under the frightened gaze of his guards, Jason tackled the underside of the baseplate. He had been thinking about it a good part of the night, and he put his theories to the test at once. By pressing hard on a knife he could make a good groove in the metal. It was not as soft as the solder, but seemed to be some simple alloy containing a good percentage of lead. What could it be concealing? Probing carefully with the point of the knife, he covered the bottom in a regular pattern. The depth of the metal was uniform except in two spots where he found irregularities; they were on the midline of the rectangular base, and equidistant from the ends and sides. Picking and sc.r.a.ping, he uncovered two familiar-looking shapes, each as big as his head.

"Mikah, get down in this hole and look at these things. Tell me what you think they are."

Mikah scratched his beard and prodded with his finger. "They're still covered with this metal. I can't be sure. . ."

"I'm not asking you to be sure of anything-just tell me what they make you think of."

"Why-big nuts, of course. Threaded on the ends of bolts. But they are so big. . . ."

"They would have to be if they hold the entire metal case on. I think we are getting very close now to the mystery of how to open the engine -and this is the time to be careful. I still can't believe it is as easy as this to crack the secret. I'm going to whittle a wooden template of the nut, then have a wrench made. While I'm gone you stay down here and pick all the metal off the bolt and out of the screw threads. We can think this thing through for a while, but sooner or later I'm going to have to take a stab at turning one of those nuts. And I find it very hard to forget about that mustard gas."

Making the wrench put a small strain on the local technology, and all of the old men who enjoyed the t.i.tle of Masters of the Still went into consultation over it. One of them was a fair blacksmith, and after a ritual sacrifice and a round of prayers he shoved a bar of iron into the charcoal and Jason pumped the bellows until it glowed white hot. With much hammering and cursing, it was laboriously formed into a st.u.r.dy open-end wrench with an offset head to get at the countersunk nuts. Jason made sure that the opening was slightly undersized, then took the untempered wrench to the work site and filed the jaws to an exact fit. After being reheated and quenched in oil he had the tool that he hoped would do the job.

Edipon must have been keeping track of the work progress, for he was waiting near the engine when Jason returned with the completed wrench.

"I have been under," he announced, "and have seen the nuts that the devilish Appsalanoj have concealed within solid metal. Who would have suspected! It still seems to me impossible that one metal could be hidden within another. How could that be done?"

"Easy enough. The base of the a.s.sembled engine was put into a form and the molten covering metal poured into it. It must have a much lower melting point than the steel of the engine, so there would be no damage. They just have a better knowledge of metal technology in the city, and counted upon your ignorance."

"Ignorance! You insult-"

"I take it back. I just meant they thought they could get away with the trick; and since they didn't, they are the stupid ones. Does that satisfy you?"

"What do you do next?"

"I take off the nuts and when I do there is a good chance that the poison- hood will be released and can simply be lifted off."

"It is too dangerous for you to do. The fiends may have other traps ready when the nut is turned. I will send a strong slave to turn them while we watch from a distance. His death will not matter."

"I'm touched by your concern for my health, but as much as I would like to take advantage of the offer, I cannot. I've been over the same ground and reached the reluctant conclusion that this is one job of work that I have to do myself.

Taking off those nuts looks entirely too easy, and that's what makes me suspicious. out for any more trickery at the same time-and that is something that only I can do. Now I suggest you withdraw with the troops to a safer spot."

There was no hesitation about leaving; footsteps rustled quickly on the sand and Jason was alone. The leather walls flapped slackly in the wind, and there was no other sound. Jason spat on his palms, controlled a slight shiver, and slid into the pit. The wrench fitted neatly over the nut, he wrapped both hands around it, and, bracing his leg against the pit wall, began to pull.

And stopped. Three turns of thread on the bolt projected below the nut, sc.r.a.ped clean of metal by the industrious Mikah. Something about them looked very wrong, though he didn't know quite what. But suspicion was enough.

"Mikah," he shouted, but had to call loudly two more times before his a.s.sistant poked his head tentatively around the screen. "Nip over to the petroleum works and get me one of their bolts threaded with a nut-any size, it doesn't matter."

Jason warmed his hands by the stove until Mikah returned with the oily bolt, then waved him out to rejoin the others. Back in the pit, he held it up next to the protruding section of Appsalan bolt and almost shouted with joy. The threads on the engine bolt were canted at a slightly different angle: where one ran up, the other ran down. The Appsalan threads had been cut in reverse, with a lefthand thread.

Throughout the galaxy there existed as many technical and cultural differences as there were planets, but one of the few things they all had in common, inherited from their terrestrial ancestors, was a uniformity of thread.

Jason had never thought about it before, but when he mentally ran through his experiences on different planets he realized that they were all the same. Screws went into wood, bolts went into threaded holes, and nuts all went onto bolts when you turned them with a clockwise motion. Counterclockwise removed them. In his hand was the crude d'zertano nut and bolt, and when he tried it it moved in the same manner. But the engine bolt did not: it had to be turned clockwise to remove it.

Dropping the nut and bolt, he placed the wrench on the ma.s.sive engine bolt and slowly applied pressure in what felt like the completely wrong direction- as if he were tightening, not loosening. It gave slowly, first a quarter-turn, then a half-turn. Bit by bit the projecting threads vanished, until they were level with the surface of the nut. It turned easily now, and within a minute it fell into the pit. He threw the wrench after it and scrambled out. Standing at the edge, he carefully sniffed the air, ready to run at the slightest smell of gas. There was nothing.

The second nut came off as easily as the first, and with no ill effects. Jason pushed a sharp chisel between the upper case and the baseplate where he had removed the solder, and when he leaned on it the case shifted slightly, held down only by its own weight.

From the entrance to the enclosure he shouted to the group huddled in the distance. "Come on back-this job is almost finished."

They all took turns at sliding into the pit and looking at the projecting bolts, and made appreciative sounds when Jason leaned on the chisel and showed that the case was free.

"There is still the little matter of taking it off," he told them, "and I'm sure that grabbing and heaving is the wrong way. That was my first idea, but the people who a.s.sembled that thing had some bad trouble in store for anyone who tightened those nuts instead of loosening them. Until we find out what that is, we are going to tread very lightly. Do you have any big blocks of ice around here, Edipon? It is winter now, isn't it?"

"Ice? Winter?" Edipon mumbled, caught off guard by the change of subject. He rubbed at the reddened tip of his prominent nose. "Of course it is winter. Ice-there must be ice on the higher lakes in the mountain; they are always frozen at this time of the year. But what do you want ice for?"

"You get it and I'll show you. Have it cut in nice flat blocks that I can stack I'm not going to lift off the hood-I'm going to drop the engine out from underneath it!"

By the time the slaves had brought the ice down from the distant lakes Jason had rigged a strong wooden frame flat on the ground around the engine and pushed sharpened metal wedges under the hood; then he had secured the wedges to the frame. Now, if the engine was lowered into the pit, the hood would stay above, supported by the wedges. The ice would take care of this. Jason built a foundation of ice under the engine and then slipped out the supporting bars. As the ice slowly melted, the engine would be gently lowered into the pit.

The weather remained cold, and the ice refused to melt until Jason had the pit ringed with smoking oil stoves. Water began to run down into the pit and Mikah went to work bailing it out, while the gap between the hood and the baseplate widened. The melting continued for the rest of the day and almost all of the night. Red-eyed and exhausted, Jason and Mikah supervised the soggy sinking, and when the d'zertanoj returned at dawn the engine rested safely in a pool of mud on the bottom of the pit: the hood was off.

"They're tricky devils over there in Appsala, but Jason dinAlt wasn't born yesterday," he exulted. "Do you see that crock sitting there on top of the engine?"

He pointed to a sealed container of thick gla.s.s, the size of a small barrel, filled with an oily greenish liquid; it was clamped down tightly with padded supports.

"That's the b.o.o.by-trap. The nuts I took off were on the threaded ends of two bars that held the hood on, but instead of being fastened directly to the hood they were connected by a crossbar that rested on top of that jug. If either nut was tightened instead of being loosened the bar would have bent and broken the gla.s.s. I'll give you exactly one guess as to what would have happened then."

"The poison liquid!"

"None other. And the double-walled hood is filled with it too. I suggest that as soon as we have dug a deep hole in the desert the hood and container be buried and forgotten about. I doubt if the engine has many other surprises in store, but I'll be careful as I work on it."

"You can fix it? You know what is wrong with it?" Edipon was trembling with joy.

"Not yet. I have barely looked at the thing. In fact, one look was enough to convince that the job will be as easy as stealing krenoj from a blind man. The engine is as inefficient and clumsy in construction as your petroleum still. If you people put one tenth of the energy into research and improving your product as you do into hiding it from the compet.i.tion, you would all be flying jets."

"I forgive your insult because you have done us a service. You will now fix this engine and the other engines. A new day is breaking for us!"

Jason yawned. "Right now it is a new night that is breaking for me. I have sleep to make up. See if you can talk your sons into wiping the water off that engine before it rusts away, and when I get back I'll see what I can do about getting it into running condition."

9.