A Logic Named Joe Part 20
"Down with humans! Down With the Murderers of Interstellar Travelers! Uffts forever! Men go home!"
There was a particularly loud outburst."We want freedom! We want freedom!"Then a squealing from a myriad voices from small pig-like throats."Yah! Yah! Yah! Men have hands! Yah! Yah! Yah!"
Link reached the open door. Darkness had fallen with the suddenness only observable in the tropics of some ten thousand planets. It occurred to him that the troop of uffts he'd heard in the building was probably Thistlethwaite's special rescue squad. If they'd had to rush past or through a human guard at the doorway, such a guard would now be in poor condition to resist his own exit. And it was dark and there was enough confusion to cover one man, even a man supposed to be hanged, while he left the householder's residence.
He was right. Starlight showed hundreds of small, rotund bodies galloping madly up and down the street, shrilling squealed insults at the human race in general and Harl in particular. There was one especial focus of tumult. Three men on unicorns were its center. They were apparently Harl's retainers returning from a hunt for an alleged new deposit of bog-iron. They'd been caught in the village street by the suddenly erupting disorder. They were surrounded by uffts, running around them like a merry-go-round, squealing denunciations at the tops of their voices.
"Men have hands. Shame! Shame! Shame! Down with murderers of interstellar travelers! Uffts forever!
Down with men! Down-"
The retainers' ungainly mounts tried to find a way through the squealing mob of uffts. But they were timorous. They lifted their large splay feet with a certain fearful suddenness and put them down with an attempt at delicacy. They managed to make their way along the ufft-covered street until they were almost opposite the doorway in which Link waited for a chance to leave without being instantly bowled over.
Then a unicorn made a misstep. A foot came down on an ufft. The galloping small animal squealed,"He tramped on me!"and ran away shrieking its complaint.
The sound of uproar doubled. Link went out into the darkness, to escape. He saw torches burning where men were at work building something which was plainly a gallows. Until this instant they had taken the noise and galloping calmly. They'd continued to work, though from time to time they looked with mild interest at the milling, racing small creatures which raced up and down the street, making all the noise they possibly could.
But the stepped-on shrieking ufft, complaining to high heaven of the indignity put upon him, which did not lessen his speed or his voice, changed everything. Uffts came swarming more thickly than ever about the mounted men. They seemed to climb over each other to get closer to the unicorns and squeal more ferociously than before.
And the unicorns panicked. Link saw a huge, pillowy forefoot lift with an ufft clinging to it, biting viciously. The ufft let go and bounced off its fellows on the ground. Other uffts bit at the unicorns' feet.
One of them went down to its knees and its rider toppled off. The three awkward animals bolted. All three fled crazily from the village with gigantic, splay-footed strides. The man who'd been thrown was buried under squealing uffts, while the greater number of the demonstrators went galloping after the runaway unicorns. The riders of two unicorns tried frantically to control them, but the saddle of the third was empty.
Link heard the covered-up man swearing blood-curdlingly.
He found himself plunging toward his fellow human. Quite automatically, his hands grasped two ufftian hind-legs and threw two uffts away over the heads of their fellows. Two more. Two more. Squealings from the thrown uffts seemed suddenly to terrify those who had been most valiant and most vocal in the attack.
Link again threw away two more and two more still, and suddenly the creatures were running insanely in all directions. Some ran between his legs in wild, shrill terror. They jammed that opening and Link went down with a crash, still hanging on to a kicking hind-leg. The man he'd come to rescue continued to swear, now without uffts to m.u.f.fle his words, which were remarkable. And there were men running to the scene with torches.
Link let go of the ufft he held captive. He had to, to get up. The ufft went streaking for the far horizon at the top of his voice. Harl came out of the Household, fuming.
"Sput!" he fumed. "Those uffts! They bit through the lashin's of that whiskery man's cage an' let him loose! All this fuss was gettin' him escaped! Sput! I was figurin' on havin' a real spectacular hangin'! An'
he's got away!"
The man to whose rescue Link had gone now got to his feet. He spoke, with a depth of feeling and aptness of expression that put Harl's indignation in the shade. His garments were shreds. He'd been nipped at until he was practically nude. The arriving torches even showed places where blood flowed from deeper nips than usual.
"And it was goin' to be a swell hangin'," mourned Harl indignantly. "Torchlight an' stuff! I was just waitin'
for all the fellas to get back, and the fella had to escape! But there's-"
He stared.
"Link!"
Chapter 6.
"This," said Link, at once with dignity and with pa.s.sion, "this is no time to be fooling around with hangings!"
Harl blinked at him in the starlight.
"What's the matter, Link? What' you doin' outside the house? That fella got away, but there's-"
"Me, yes!" snapped Link. "But we can't spare the time for that now! Get some men mounted! We've got to catch Thistlethwaite!"
"We don't know where he went," objected Harl.
"I do!" Link snapped at him. "He went to the ship! If for nothing else, to get some pants! Then he'll go to Old Man Addison's. The uffts'll take him. He'll make a business deal with him! A trade! A bargain!"
It was an absurd time and place for an argument. Men with torches lighted one small part of the street.
They'd come to help a fellow human momentarily buried under swarming, squealing uffts. Link had gotten there first. Then Harl. Now Link, with clenched fists, faced Harl in a sort of pa.s.sionate frustration.
"Don't you see?" he demanded fiercely. "He was on Sord Three last year! He made a deal with Old Man Addison then! He's brought a shipload of unduplied stuff to trade with Old Man Addison for dupliers! Don't you see?"
Harl wrinkled his forehead.
"But that'd be . . . that wouldn't be mannerly!" he objected. "That'd be-sput, Link! That'd be . . .
business!"
He used the term as if it were one only to be used in strictly private consultation with a physician, as if it were a euphemism for something unspeakable.
"That's exactly what it is!" rasped Link. "Business! And bad business at that! He'll sell the contents of his ship to Old Man Addison and be paid in dupliers! And with the dupliers-"
"Sput!" Harl waved his hands. He bellowed, "Everybody out! Big trouble! Everybody out! Bring y'spears!"
Men came out of houses. Some of them wore shirts such as Link wore no longer. They were pleased with them. Since the article duplicated was relatively new, the replicas of it had all the properties of new shirts, though the raw stuff of the thread involved had previously had the properties of the centuries-old sample from which it had been duplied, and which hadn't been new since before the art of weaving was forgotten. New-shirted retainers came out of houses to hear Link's commands.
"Get mounted!" roared Harl. "We' ridin' to that ship that come down today. What's in it's goin' to Old Man Addison if we don't get there first! Take y'spears! Get movin'! The uffts are goin' too far!"
There was confusion. More men appeared and ran out of sight. Some of them came back riding unicorns. Some led them. The three animals that had been ringed in and whose tender feet had been bitten by the uffts now came limping back into the village. The two riders had somehow managed to subdue their own beasts, and then had overtaken and caught the riderless animal.
"A unicorn for Link!" roared Harl, in what he evidently considered a military manner. "Get him a spear!"
"Hold it!" said Link grimly. "That stun gun you took from Thistlethwaite! You were carrying it. I'll take that, Harl! I know how to use it!"
"I ain't had time to figure it out," said Harl, agreeing.
He roared. "Get that funny d.i.n.kus the whiskery man was carryin' this mornin'! Give it to Link!"
Confusion developed further. Since his first sight of Harl, riding up to the ship with five unicorn mounted men at his back, Link had made innumerable guesses about the social and economic system of Sord Three. Most of them had been wrong. He'd been sure, though, that the organization into Households was a revival or reinvention of a feudal system, in which a Householder was responsible for the feeding and clothing of his retainers, and in return had an indefinite amount of power. Harl had the power, certainly, to order strangers hanged.
But it became clear that whether it was feudal or not, the system was not designed for warfare. Harl was in command, but n.o.body else had secondary rank. There were no under-officers or non-commissioned ones. Harl's howled and bellowed orders got a troop of mounted men a.s.sembled. Confusedly and raggedly, they grouped themselves. They carried spears and wore large knives. Harl bellowed additional orders and whoever heard them obeyed them more or less. With great confusion, the group of armed and mounted men got ready to start out in the moonlight.
Just as he was about to give the order to march, Thana's voice came from the building which was the Householder's residence.
"Harl! Harl! If you go off now, dinner will get cold!"
"Let it!" snapped Harl. "We got to catch that whiskery fella!"
He roared for his followers to march, and march they did in a straggling column behind him. Somebody confusedly searched for and found Link, riding next to Harl, to give him the stun gun which was the only weapon that had been aboard theGlamorgan.He felt it over in the darkness.
"It seems to be in working order," he told Harl. "Thanks."
"What-" Then Harl saw the stun gun. The starlight was moderately bright, but it was not possible to see the details of anything, whether of the armed party or the landscape. "Oh. You got that thing. I was layin'
off to figure out what it was, but I didn't have time. What's it do, Link?"
"It knocks a man or an animal out," said Link curtly. "It shoots an electric charge. But you can set the charge not to stun him, but only sting him up more or less."
"'Lectric? asked Harl. "That's interestin'! How far does it throw?"
"That depends," said Link.
"Mmmmm. Uh, Link, how did you find out that that whiskery fella is makin' a deal with Old Man Addison?"
"Uffts told me," said Link grimly. "Old Man Addison is going to pay three thousand bottles of beer for Thistlethwaite's delivery to him. It's a written contract. Thistlethwaite wouldn't promise anything like that if he didn't know his value to Old Man Addison!"
Harl shook his head.
"You spoiled a good hangin' by not tellin' me!" he said reproachfully. "He got away. But how d'you know he's headin' for the ship?"
"I told you!" said Link. "He wants pants. He wants a shirt. He wants clothes. He wants to be dressed like a business man when he does business with Old Man Addison!"
Harl considered.
"It looks reasonable," he admitted. "Right reasonable!"
"I was offered a deal to escape, too," said Link sourly. "The uffts wanted five thousand bottles of beer to take me to Old Man Addison's Household."
"You wouldn't like him," said Harl sagely. "He's hardly got any more manners than an ufft. Anybody who's mannerly like you are couldn't get along with him, Link. You showed sense in stayin' with me."
"To be hanged!" said Link bitterly. "But-"
"Hold on!" said Harl in astonishment. "Didn't I admire that shirt o' yours? An' didn't I accept it as a gift? I could make a gift to a man I was goin' to hang, Link. That'd be just manners! But I couldn't accept a gift an' then hang him! That'd be disgraceful!" He paused and said in an injured tone, "I've heard of Old Man Addison doin' things like that, but I never thought anybody'd suspect it of me!"
Link waved his hand impatiently. It was remarkable that the discovery that plans for his hanging were changed should make so little difference in this thinking. But right now he was concerned with the prevention of a disaster vastly more important than any concern of his own.
"I doubt," he said, "that we'd better go through the ufft city. We'd better circle it. We'd be delayed at best, and Thistlethwaite is in a hurry to settle his bargain with Old Man Addison. He'll hurry."
Harl cleared his throat and bellowed toward the skies. The trailing cavalcade of ungainly unicorns changed direction to follow him.
The mounted party was probably fifty men and animals strong. In the dimness of starlight alone, it was an extraordinary sight. The men rode in clumps of two or three or half a dozen, on steeds whose gait was camel-like and awkward. The unicorns wobbled as they strode. Their limp and fleshy horns swayed and swung. Link, looking back and observing the total tack of discipline, felt an enormous exasperation.
He didn't like the situation he was in, even when immediate hanging was no longer included. In all his life before he'd been carefree and zestfully concerned only with doing things because they were novel or exciting, and on occasion because they involved some tumult. In anybody his age, that was a completely normal trait. But now he had a responsibility of intolerable importance. The future ofverymany millions of human beings would depend on what he did, but he'd get no thanks for his trouble. It went against the grain of Link's entire nature to dedicate himself to a tedious and exacting task like this. If he were successful it would never be known. In fact, it was a condition of success that it must never be known anywhere off of Sord Three. And it mustn't be understood there!
At least an hour after their starting out a high, shrill clamor set up, very far away.
"That's uffts," said Harl. "Somethin's happened an' they feel all happy an' excited."
"It's Thistlethwaite," said Link. "He got to the ship. He probably pa.s.sed out some gifts to the uffts."
The cavalcade went on. The faint shrill clamor continued.
"Uh, Link," said Harl, in a tone at once apologetic and depressed, "I thought of somethin' that might make the uffts feel good. If like you said he gave presents to the uffts, maybe it was unduplied things.
They couldn't use 'em, havin' hoofs instead of hands. But they'd know us humans 'ud have to buy 'em.
They like to bargain. They enjoy makin' humans pay too much. It makes 'em feel smart and superior. He could ha' made a lot of trouble for us humans! A lot o' trouble!"
The long, somehow lumpy line of men and animals went on through the darkness. Harl said unhappily, "The uffts were tryin' to make me pay 'em for news of where there was a lot of bog-iron. You figure what they'd make me pay for somethin' unduplied! If that fella's pa.s.sin' out that kinda gifts, the uffts feel swell. They feel happy. But I don't!"
Link said nothing. It would be reasonable for Thistlethwaite to feel that he had to get samples of his cargo aground to ensure his deal with Old Man Addison, and then to have a train of armed men and animals come to unload theGlamorganand carry its specially purchased cargo away. If he opened a cargo compartment to get samples, the uffts could well have demanded samples for themselves. Or they could simply take them.
"And," Harl fumed, "when they got something they'll ask fifty bottles of beer for, they won't bother bringin' in greenstuff, and how'll I get the beer to pay 'em? They'll bring in knives an' cloth and demand beer! And if I don't have the beer, they'll take the stuff to another Household."
"Then you'll probably have to pay it."
"Without greenstuff, I can't," said Harl bitterly.
There was an addition to the faint, joyous clamor beyond the horizon. Link began to discount any chance of success in this expedition. If Harl was right, Thistlethwaite had gotten to the ship, had gotten more clothing, and had very probably pa.s.sed out in lieu of cash or beer, such objects of virtue as mirrors, cosmetics, cooking pots made of other metals than iron, crockery, small electric appliances like flashlights, pens, pencils, and synthetic fabrics. None of these things could be duplied on Sord Three, because the minerals required as raw materials had been forgotten if they were ever known.
And all this would put Harl in a bad situation, no doubt. Every Householder would need to deal with Old Man Addison for such trinkets, which he must supply to his retainers or seem less than a desirable feudal superior. But to Link the grim fact was that Thistlethwaite must have gotten to the ship before the mounted party. If he suspected pursuit he'd waste no time. He'd go on. And if he had gone on- Dead ahead, now, there were peculiar small sounds. It took Link seconds to realize that it was the hoofs of uffts on metal stair treads and metal floors, the sound coming out of an opened exit port.
"Harl," said Link in a low tone, "Thistlethwaite may still be in the ship. There are certainly plenty of uffts rummaging around in there! Can you get your men-"
But Harl did not wait for such advice as a self-appointed chief of staff might give to his commander-in-chief on the eve of battle. He raised his voice.
"There they are, boys!" he bellowed. "Come along an' get 'em! Get the whiskery fella! If we don't get him there'll be no hangin' tonight!"
Roaring impressively, he urged his awkward mount forward. He was followed by all his undisciplined troop. It was a wild and furious and completely confused charge. Link and Harl led it, of course. They topped a natural rise in the ground and saw the tall shape of theGlamorganagainst the stars.
There was a wild stirring of what seemed to be hordes of uffts, cl.u.s.tered about the exit port and swarming in and swarming out again. A light inside the port cast an inadequate glow outside and in that dim light, rotund, pig-like shapes could be seen squirming and struggling to get into the ship, if they were outside, or to get out if they happened to be in. Link saw the glitter of that light upon metal. Evidently the uffts were making free with at least the contents of one cargo compartment. They were bringing out what small objects they could carry.
Harl bellowed again, and his followers dutifully yelled behind him, and the whole pack of them went sweeping over the hillcrest and down upon the aggregation of uffts. The unicorns were apparently blessed with good night vision, because none of them fell among the boulders that strewed the hillside.
The charge was discovered. Squeals and squeaks of alarm came from the uffts. It was not as much of a tumult as so many small creatures should make, however. Those with aluminum pots and pans, or kitchen appliances, or small tools or other booty, those of them with objects carried in their mouths simply bolted off into the dark, making no outcry because it would have made them drop their loot. Link saw one of them with an especially large pot dive into it and roll over, and pick it up again and run ten paces and then trip and dive into it again before it found a way to hold the pot safely and go galloping madly away.
The other uffts scattered. But there were boulders here. They shrilled defiant slogans from behind them.