In response to that name another Dilbian of about the same size came forward. Together, grinning, they hauled on the rope.
However, for them as for the blacksmith, the lock held the brake on the block-and-tackle in place. Instead of the rope running through the pulleys as it had for Bill, they—like Flat Fingers—were reduced to trying to lift by main strength the dead weight not only of the logs but of the block-and-tackle itself. They did not succeed. In fact, a third Dilbian was needed to help them before the bundle of logs could be swayed, creakingly, up into the air.
A mutter, a rumble, a general sound of awe ran through the crowd. They stared at Bill with strange eyes.
“Well, Blacksmith!” said the Bluffer, with something very like a crow of triumph in his voice. “I guess that settles it?”
“Not quite, Postman!” replied the blacksmith. He had stepped back to the forge and picked up a rather long sharp knife from a small table near it. Now, approaching the tied-up bundle of logs, and shoving the three who had lifted it out of his way, he cut the rope above the block-and-tackle and below it, tossed it aside and retied the cut end of the lifting rope directly to the rope binding the load together. Then he stepped back, and turned to Bill.
“All right, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said ominously. “Let’s see you lift it now.”
Bill did not move. But his heart felt as if it had just stopped beating.
“Why should I?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you why!” said Flat Fingers. He reached down and picked up the block-and-tackle in one large hand and shoved it before Bill’s eyes. “Did you think a professional man like me could have something like this pulled right under his nose and not know what’s going on? The only reason you could lift those logs was because you used this! This gadget, right here!” He shook it, fiercely, almost in Bill’s face. “I don’t know how you made it work for you, and not work for me—but this is how come you managed to lift those logs!”
“That’s right,” said Bill calmly. The sweat was prickling under his collar.
“Hey!” cried the Hill Bluffer in alarm. “Pick-and-Shovel, you aren’t saying—”
“Let him answer me, first,” rumbled the blacksmith dangerously. In the mask of his furry face, his eyes were suddenly red and bloodshot.
“I said,” repeated Bill distinctly, “of course I did. As you all know”—he turned toward the crowd of Dilbians just outside the shed—“my main job here is to teach you all how to use the tools that us Shorties brought you in order to make your farming less work, and make it produce more crops. Well, I just thought I’d give you a little example of what one of our gadgets can do.”
He pointed at the block-and-tackle, which the blacksmith still held.
“That’s one of them,” he said, “and you just saw how easy it made lifting those logs. Now wouldn’t you all like to have a gadget like that—”
“Hold on!” snarled Flat Fingers ominously. “Never mind changing the subject, Pick-and-Shovel! You set up a weightlifting contest. You claimed you could outlift me. But when it came down to it, you used this. You cheated!”
The word rang out loudly on the warm afternoon air. From the crowd around there was dead silence. The accusation, Bill knew, was the ultimate one among Dilbians.
It was the old story of the spirit versus the letter of the law, again. What held true for laws held true also for verbal contracts and personal promises. Bill had conceived the block-and-tackle as a clever way of discharging an apparently impossible promise. But what Flat Fingers was saying was that Bill had promised one thing but delivered another.
There was all the Dilbian world of difference between the two things. What Bill had intended to pull off was something clever—and therefore praiseworthy. What Flat Fingers was claiming was anathema to all Dilbians.
The absolute inviolability of the letter of the law was the cement holding the Dilbian culture together. It was the one thing on which farmers, outlaws, Lowland and Upland Dilbians agreed instinctively. Not even the Hill Bluffer would stand by Bill if it was agreed that he had done what the blacksmith said. The penalty for cheating was death.
The crowd about the forge was silent, waiting for Bill’s reply.
Chapter 14
Silently, Bill blessed the inspiration that had come to him earlier when he had originally begun to challenge the blacksmith. That inspiration should get him out of his present fix now, he told himself firmly. But in spite of that inner firmness, he felt his stomach sink inside him as he looked around at the grim, furry faces ringing him in. He forced himself to maintain his casual voice, and the careless smile on his face.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said lightly. He turned and looked into the crowd. “Where’s More Jam?”
“What’s More Jam got to do with it?” growled Flat Fingers, behind him.
“Why, just that he was there when you and I had our little talk,” answered Bill, without turning. “He’s my witness. Where is More Jam?”
“Coming!” huffed avoice from the back of the crowd. And a moment later, More Jam himself shoved his way through the front ranks and joined Bill and the others under the shed roof.
“Well, now, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said. “You were passing the shout for me?”
“Yes, I was,” said Bill. “You were over at the Residency this morning and maybe you were listening when I had my little talk with Flat Fingers. I wonder if you could think back and see if you remember just what I said I’d meet him here at noon to do? Did I say I’d outlift him?”
“Let’s see, now,” rumbled More Jam. “As I remember it, what Pick-and-Shovel here said was—‘I’m just a Shorty and I’d never have the nerve to suggest that I might be able to outlift you ordinarily. But I just might be able to outdo you at it if I had to, and I’m ready to prove it by moving something you can’t move.’ ”
More Jam cocked his head at the blacksmith.
“Sorry not to be able to back a fellow townsman up, Flat Fingers,” said Sweet Thing’s father sadly, “but that’s what Pick-and-Shovel said, all right. And he suggested that you get together after lunch and you said ‘Suits me …’ ” More Jam continued, repeating the conversation with as much accuracy as if he had been a recording machine.
Bill let a slow, silent sigh of relief escape him. The Dilbians, he knew, had the rather elementary written language that made the Bluffer’s job as postman possible and necessary. But Bill had gambled on the fact that, like most primitive cultures, it was the Dilbian custom and habit to depend on the memories of living witnesses to any agreement or transaction.
However, the verdict, Bill noted, was not in yet. The crowd was still silent.
Bill’s breath checked in his chest once more—but just then a swelling wave of thunderous, bass-voiced Dilbian laughter began to rise and ring about Bill’s ears from every direction. Everybody was laughing—even, finally, Flat Fingers himself. In fact, the blacksmith showed an alarming intention of slapping Bill on the back in congratulation—an intention Bill only frustrated by hastily backing up against the stout belly of More Jam.
“Well, well, well!” chortled the towering blacksmith finally, as the laughter began to die down. “You sure are a sneaky little Shorty, at that—and I’m the first man to admit it! No offense about my flying off the handle and saying you cheated, I hope? If you feel we ought to tangle about it, right now—”
“No, no—no offense!” said Bill quickly. “None at all!”
General sounds of approval from the surrounding crowd greeted this magnanimous attitude on Bill’s part. By this time the shed was completely hemmed in by the villagers. It occurred to Bill that this might be a good time to try to get them on his side against the outlaws, striking while the iron was hot, so to speak. He stepped up on a pile of logs.
“Er—people of Muddy Nose,” said Bill. For a second, his voice threatened to stick in his throat. For all the crowd’s present good humor, Bill could not forget the ominous quiet that had hung over them a moment earlier
when the blacksmith had accused him of cheating. It was a little like public speaking to a convocation of grizzlies. Nevertheless, Bill fell back upon his innate stubbornness and determination, and went doggedly ahead with what he had intended to say.
“—As you all know,” he said, “my main job here is to help all of you to make your farms turn out bigger and better crops. But as you all know, too, I haven’t been able to do anything about this yet because I’ve been tied up with a problem about Dirty Teeth and a bunch of outlaws headed by Bone Breaker—whom you all know well.
“But I’m sure you can all understand how this could keep me busy,” went on Bill, “because these same outlaws have been keeping you people here around Muddy Nose busy for some time.
“So, I just wanted to mention that perhaps the time has come for you and me to join forces and see about settling the hash of these outlaws once and for all,” said Bill. “When I first landed in this community, I was given to understand that you might not be too interested in following a Shorty that wanted to do away with the community menace up in Outlaw Valley. I can understand that—you didn’t know anything about me. But now, though I do say it myself who shouldn’t—you’ve seen me have this little competition here with your village blacksmith, who’s as good a man as they come—”
Bill paused to wave in Flat Fingers’ direction, and Flat Fingers scowled from right to left—that being the male Dilbian way of taking a bow when referred to on public occasion.
“At any rate, I thought that maybe now we might get together and start to make some plans about cleaning out the outlaws …” For the first time, Bill began to be conscious of a good-natured, but rather obvious, lack of response from the crowd before him. In fact, from his elevated position on top of the logs, he now saw some of the outer members of his audience beginning to turn away and amble off.
“Believe me,” he said, raising his voice and speaking as earnestly and forcefully as he could, “Muddy Nose Village can’t get better and richer and stronger until those outlaws are settled. So what I thought was that we might get together a town meeting …”
The crowd, however, was visibly breaking up. Individually and in small groups they began to scatter, turning their backs on Bill and drifting off into the body of the village. Bill continued to talk on, almost desperately. But it was plainly a losing cause. Very shortly, his audience was down to its hard core. That is to say—Sweet Thing, More Jam, the Hill Bluffer, and Rat Fingers. Feeling foolish, Bill stopped talking and climbed down from the pile.
“I guess I don’t convince people very well,” he said in honest bewilderment to those who remained.
“Don’t say that!” said Flat Fingers strongly. “You convinced me, Pick-and-Shovel! And I’m as good as any three other men in the village, any day—” He checked himself, looking apologetically at Sweet Thing’s male parent. “—men my own age, that is.”
“Why thanks, Blacksmith,” said More Jam with’ a heavy sigh. “Nice of you not to include me—though of course I’m only ashadow of my former self.” He turned his head to Bill, however, and his voice became serious. “In fact, you’ve got a friend in me too, Pick-and-Shovel—just as I told you yesterday. But that doesn’t change things. If you figured this village to fall in line behind you in a feud with the outlaws, you should’ve known better.”
“You sure should have!” interrupted the Bluffer emphatically. “Why I could’ve told you, Pick-and-Shovel, you’d never get anywhere impressing these people by being tricky. They know Shorties can be sneaky as all get out. The Tricky Teacher proved that. What they want to see is what you can do in the muscle-and-guts department. What you’ve got to do is just what you’re set up to do—and that’s tangle with Bone Breaker. Lay him out! Then these people will back you against the outlaws.”
“I’ll get started right away on that blade and buckler, Pick-and-Shovel,” put in Flat Fingers. “Let’s see if I can find something around here that’s particularly good blade material.”
“Guts-and-muscles department …” muttered Bill thoughtfully, echoing the Bluffer’s words. That was certainly the department in which everyone seemed to be eager to have him operate—including whoever or whatever was responsible for his being in this place and situation in the first place.
It was hardly to be considered that Mula-ay had been telling the truth, this morning in the woods, when he had claimed Bill had been deliberately put on the spot by human authorities simply to save face in the case of the Muddy Nose Project. On the other hand, some of the things the Hemnoid had said had chimed uncomfortably well with some of the things Anita had said when he spoke to her in Outlaw Valley.
Either Anita had been as badly misled about the true situation here as Bill had, or … It occurred to Bill that the cards might be stacked more heavily against him than he had thought, even when he had sat thinking in front of the communications console after his unsuccessful attempt to contact Greentree or anyone else off-planet. There seemed to be no way out of his duel with Bone Breaker unless he could figure out who or what had put him in this situation, and what the true aims and motives of everyone concerned were.
In any case, Anita was going to have to provide him with some answers. That meant he must talk to her again, which meant another penetration of Outlaw Valley, which could hardly be done in the broad light of day….
“Muscle-and-guts department?” he repeated again, looking up at the Bluffer. “I suppose it would take a little muscle— and guts too—to get in and out of that Outlaw Valley after it’s been shut up for the night?”
The Bluffer stared back at him in astonishment.- Sweet Thing and More Jam also stared. Some little distance away the blacksmith raised his head in astonishment.
“Are you crazy, Pick-and-Shovel?” demanded Flat Fingers. “The gate to that valley is locked and barred the minute the sun goes down and there are two armed men on guard until it’s opened up at dawn. Nobody goes in and out of that valley after the sun’s gone down!”
“I do,” said Bill grimly. “I think I’ll just drop in there tonight; and I’ll bring back that piece of metal outside the outlaw’s dining hall they use as a gong, to prove I’ve been there!”
Chapter 15
“Will we get there before dark?” Bill asked.
“Before dark?” The Bluffer, striding beneath Bill, squinted through the trees at the descending sun now, gleaming redly through black-looking trunks and branches, close to setting.
“Well, it’ll be dark down in the valley. But up on top of the cliffs there’ll be some daylight, still. And it’s the north cliff-top you want, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” said Bill. “If it’s still light there, that’s all I’ll need.”
“All you need, is it?” muttered the Bluffer. “Mind telling a man how you’re going to get into that valley, anyway?”
“I’ll show you when we get there,” said Bill.
In fact, while he was fairly confident that he would make it, one way or another, Bill himself would not know for sure until he actually got to the top of the cliff and made some measurements. There was a hundred feet of soft, quarter-inch climbing rope wound around his waist under his shirt, and with the help of the programed lathe he had produced some homemade pitons, snap rings, and a light metal hammer with an opposed pick end. These latter items were in a knapsack on his back.
As the postman had predicted, when they reached the north wall overlooking Outlaw Valley, the sunset was only falling on the buildings of the valley floor below, them. The Bluffer stopped and let Bill down, but with a strong air of skepticism.
“What’re you going to do, Pick-and-Shovel,” the Postman asked. “Fly down into that valley?”
“Not exactly,” said Bill. He had produced a jackknife from his pocket and opened it. Now, while the Bluffer watched with unconcealed curiosity, Bill found and cut off a couple of small tree branches with y-shaped ends. The branching ends he trimmed down to vee’s; and stuck the long end of the branches in the ground, one
in front of the other, with the vee’s in line, pointing out across the valley.
Bill then found and cut another straight stick, long enough to be in the two vee’s, so that it lay like an arrow pointing across at the top of the opposite valley wall. Digging into his knapsack, he came up with one of his homemade pitons, looking like a heavy nail with one end sharpened and the opposite end bent into a loop. He tied one end of a length of string to the loop and the other end to the center of the stick resting in the forks of the two stakes he had driven into the earth. Then he adjusted the stakes until the piton hung straight up and down and in line with the two stakes, over a point midway between them.
“What is it?” demanded the Bluffer, unable to conceal his interest.
“Another of our Shorty gadgets,” said Bill. There was, in fact, no Dilbian word for what he had just built—which was a sort of crude surveyor’s transit. The dangling piton acted like a plumb bob which allowed him to check whether his line of sight—which was along the straight stick in the two forks of the stakes—was level. Now assured that it was, Bill knelt at the back end of the stake, so that he could sight along its length at the top of the valley wall opposite. It seemed to be almost directly in line. That should mean that the two valley walls were roughly of the same height.
From his pocket he took out a protractor he had located back at the Residency, and with this held against the end of the straight stick in the stake forks he rotated it through its angles of declination, making an attempt to get a rough approximation of the angle subtended by the height of the opposite cliff from its valley bottom to its tree-clad top.
He got the angle, and abandoned the transit for a pencil and a notebook. In the notebook, he jotted down the angle he had just observed. Then, using his eye, he made an attempt to judge the distance of the opposite cliff from where he stood.
Since both cliffs were more or less vertical, the gap between the point where he stood and the top of the cliff directly opposite should be roughly the same as the width of the valley floor at that point. His memory of the outlaws’ eating hall down below enabled him to estimate its overall length now about eighty feet. Just about twelve such eating halls placed end-to-end would be required to stretch from this cliff to the other one. Twelve times eighty was nine hundred and sixty—call it a thousand feet roughly between the cliffs.
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