“Yah! Yah! Humans! Men, go home! Hide your paws, Humans!” A small group yelled in chorus, “The uffts will rise again! The uffts will rise again!” Yet another party roared, although some of the voices were squeaky, “Down with Households! Down with tyrants! Down with Humans! Up with uffts!”
The cavalcade was the center of a moving uproar. At the beginning there’d been some clear space around the feet of the unicorns. But uffts came from all directions, shrilling abuse. Swarms of rotund bodies scuttled up and over the heaps of dug-out dirt and stones, and they ran into other swarms, and they crowded each other closer to the mounted men. Some were unable to dart aside, and dived down into burrows to escape trampling. They popped out behind the unicorns to yap fresh insults. Then one popped out directly underneath a unicorn, and the unicorn’s pillowy foot sent him rolling, and squealing, but unhurt, and then there was an uproar.
“Dirty humans! Tyrants! Now you kill us.”
“Hold fast to your saddle, Link,” said Harl bitterly. “They’ll be bitin’ the unicorns’ feet in a minute. That’ll be the devil! They’ll run away and y’don’t want to get thrown! Not down among them!”
Link reined aside and held up his hand for attention. He was a stranger and part of this demonstration was for him. He knew something about demonstrators. For one thing, they are always attracted, almost irresistibly, to new audiences. But there is another and profound weakness in the psychology of a mob. When it is farthest from sane behavior, it likes to be told how intelligent it is.
“My friends!” boomed Link, in a fine and oratorical carrying voice. “My friends, back at the ship I had a conversation with two of your cultured and brilliant race, which filled me with even increased respect for your known intellectuality!” There was a slight lessening of the tumult nearby. Some uffts had heard pleasing words. They listened.
“But that conversation was not necessary,” Link announced splendidly, “to inform me of your brilliance. On my home planet the intellect of the uffts of Sord Three has already become a byword! When a knotty problem arises, someone is sure to say, ‘If we could ask the uffts of Sord Three about this, they’d settle it!’ ”
The nearer uffts were definitely quieter. They shushed those just behind them. Then they shouted to Link to go on. There was still babbling and abuse, but it came from farther away.
“So I came here,” Link announced in ringing tones, “to carry out a purpose which, if accomplished, will make it probable that the anniversary of my arrival will be celebrated over the entire surface of at least one planet! My friends, I call upon you to bring this about! I call upon you to cause such rejoicing as indubitably will modify the future of all intellectual activities! Which will bring about a permanent orientation ufftward of the more abstruse ratiocination of the intellectuals of the galaxy! I call upon you, my friends, to give to other worlds the benefit of your brains!”
He paused. He knew that Harl listened with startled incomprehension. He could see out of the corner of his eyes that the other halted men were bemused and uneasy, but the uffts within hearing cheered. Those too far away to hear clearly were trying to silence those behind them. They cheered to make the balance listen. Link bowed to the applause.
“I bring you,” he boomed with a fine gesture, “I bring you a philosophical problem, which is also a problem in sophistic logic, that the greatest minds of my home planet have not been able to solve! I have come to ask the uffts of Sord Three to use their superlative intellects upon this baffling intellectual question! There must be an answer! But it has eluded the greatest brains of my home system. So I ask the uffts of Sord Three to become the pedagogues of my world. You are our only hope! But I do not feel only hope! I feel confidence! I am sure that ufftian intellect will find the answer which will initiate a new era in intellectual processes!”
He paused again. There were more cheers. Much of the cheering came from uffts who cheered because other uffts were cheering.
“The problem,” said Link impressively, and with ample volume, “the problem is this! You know what whiskers are. You know what shaving is. You know that a barber is a man who shaves off the whiskers of other men. Now, there is a Household in which there is a barber. He shaves everybody in the Household who does not shave himself. He does not shave anybody who does shave himself. The ineluctable problem is, who shaves the barber?”
He stopped. He looked earnestly at all parts of his audience.
“Who shaves the barber?” he repeated dramatically. “Consider this, my friends! Discuss it! It has baffled the philosophers and logicians of my home world! I have brought it to you in complete confidence that, without haste and after examining every aspect of the situation, you will penetrate its intricacies and find the one true solution! When this is done I shall return to my home world bearing the triumphant result of your cerebration and a new field of intellectual research will be opened for the minds of all future generations!”
He made a gesture of finality. There was really loud cheering now. Link was a stranger. He had flattered the uffts and those near him were charmed by his tribute, and those farther away cheered because those near him had cheered, and those still farther away—
“Let’s get going,” said Link briefly.
The cavalcade took up its march again. But now there were groups of uffts running alongside Link’s unicorn, cheering him from time to time and in between beginning to argue vociferously among themselves that the barber did or didn’t shave himself because if he didn’t, or if he did, why? And if he wore whiskers he would not shave himself and therefore would have to shave himself and therefore couldn’t have whiskers.
The angular, ungainly unicorns moved in their slab-sided fashion across the remaining dirt piles and burrows of the ufft city. Behind them, a buzz of argument began and rose to the sky. Uffts by thousands zestfully discussed the problem of the barber. He shaved everybody who didn’t shave himself. He didn’t shave anybody who did shave himself. Therefore—
Harl rode in something like a brown study for a long way after the ufft metropolis was left behind. Then he said heavily:
“Uh… Link, did you sure enough come here to ask the uffts that there question?”
“No,” admitted Link. “But it seemed like a good idea to ask it.”
Harl considered for a long time. Then he said:
“What did you come here for, Link?”
Link considered in his turn. Viewing the matter dispassionately, he didn’t seem to have had any clear cut reason. One thing had led to another, and here he was. But a serious minded character like Harl might find the truth difficult to understand. So Link said with a fine air of regret:
“I’ll tell you, Harl. There was a girl named Imogene—”
“Uh-uh,” said Harl regretfully. “I’m gettin’ kind of troubled about you, Link. You’re guestin’ with me, an’ all that, but that whiskery fella that cussed so bad an’ insulted me, he came on the spaceship with you. And that speech you made to those uffts—I don’t understand it, Link. I just don’t understand it! You seem like a right nice fella to me, but I’m a Householder and I got responsibilities. And I’m gettin’ to think that with times like they are, and the uffts cheering you like they did, an’ all my other troubles—”
“What?” asked Link.
“I hate to say it, Link,” said Harl apologetically, “an’ it may not seem mannerly of me, but honest I think I’d better get you hung along with that whiskery fella that wanted to send a message to Old Man Addison. I won’t like doin’ it, Link, and I hope you won’t take it unkindly, but it does look like I better hang you both to avoid trouble.”
Harl’s followers rearranged themselves, closing Link in so there was no possibility of his escape.
Chapter 4
They reached the village which Harl pointed to with the comment that it was his Household. They rode into it, and there were a good many women and girls in sight. They were elaborately clothed in garments at once incredibly brilliant and sometimes pat
ched. But only a few men were visible. There were no dogs, such as properly belong in a small human settlement, but there were uffts in the streets sauntering about entirely at their ease. Once the cavalcade passed two of them, squatted on their haunches in the position of quadrupeds sitting down, apparently deep in satisfying conversation. It overtook a small cart loaded with a remarkable mixture of leaves, weeds, roots, grass, and all manner of similar debris. It looked like the trash from a gardening job, headed either for a compost heap or for a place where it would be burned to be gotten rid of. But there were four uffts pulling it by leather thongs they held in their teeth. It had somehow the look of a personal enterprise of the uffts, personally carried out.
A little way on there was a similar cart backed up to a wide door in the largest building of the village. That cart was empty, but a man in strikingly colored, but patched, clothing was putting plastic bottles into it. The contents looked like beer. An ufft supervised the placing, counting aloud in a sardonic voice as if ostentatiously guarding against being cheated. Three other uffts waited for the tally to be complete.
The cavalcade drew rein at a grand entrance to this largest building. Harl dismounted and said heavily:
“Here’s where I live. I don’t see anything else to do but hang you, Link, but there’s no need to lock you up. Come along with me. My fellas will be watchin’ all the doors an’ windows. You can’t get away, though I mighty near wish you could.”
The four other riders dismounted. There’d been no obvious sign of Link’s change of status, from warmly approved guest to somebody it seemed regrettably necessary to hang, but after Harl’s decision his followers had matter-of-factly taken measures to prevent his escape. There was no hope of a successful dash now, nor was there any place to dash to.
Link climbed down to the ground. During all his life, up to now, he’d craved the novel and the unexpected. But it hadn’t happened that the prospect of being hanged had ever been a part of his life. In a way, without realizing it, he’d taken the state of not being hanged for granted. He’d never felt that he needed to work out solid reasons against his hanging as a project. But Harl appeared to be wholly in earnest. His air of regret about the necessity seemed sincere, and Link rather startledly believed that he needed some good arguments. He needed them both good and quick.
“Come inside,” said Harl gloomily. “I never had anything bother me so much, Link! I don’t even know what it’s mannerly to do about your ship. You ain’t given it to me, and you welcomed me in it, so it would be disgraceful to take it. But it’s the most iron I ever did see! And things are pretty bad for iron, like most other things. I got to think things out.”
Link followed him through huge, wide doors. It looked like a ceremonial entranceway. Inside there was a splendid hall hung with draperies that at some time had been impressive. They were a mass of embroidery from top to bottom and the original effect must have been one of genuine splendor. But they were ancient, now, and they showed it. At the end of the hall there was a grandiose, stately, canopied chair upon a raised dais. It looked like a chair of state. The entire effect was one of badly faded grandeur. The present effect was badly marred by electric panels which obviously didn’t light, and by three uffts sprawled out and sleeping comfortably on the floor.
“Most of my fellas are away,” said Harl worriedly. “An ufft came in yesterday with some bog-iron and said he’d found the biggest deposit of it that ever was found. But y’can’t trust uffts! He wanted a thousand bottles of beer for showin’ us where it was, and five bottles for every load we took away. So I got most of my fellas out huntin’ for it themselves. The ufft’d think it was a smart trick to get a thousand bottles of beer out of me for nothing, and then laugh!”
One of the seemingly dozing uffts yawned elaborately. It was not exactly derisive, but it was not respectful, either.
Harl scowled. He led the way past the ceremonial chair and out a small sized door just beyond. Here, abruptly, there was open air again. And here, in a space some fifty by fifty feet, there was an absolutely startling garden. It struck Link forcibly because it made him realize that at no time on the journey from the landed Glamorgan to the village had he seen a sign of cultivated land. There was very little vegetation of any sort. Isolated threads of green appeared here and there, perhaps, but nothing else. There’d been no fields, no crops, no growing things of any sort. There was literally no food being grown outside the village for the feeding of its inhabitants. But here, in a space less than twenty yards across, there was a ten-foot patch of wheat, and a five-foot patch of barley, and a row of root-plants which were almost certainly turnips. Every square inch was cultivated. There were rows of plants not yet identifiable. There was a rather straggly row of lettuce. It was strictly a kitchen garden, growing foodstuffs, but on so small a scale that it wouldn’t markedly improve the diet of a single small family. In one corner there was an apple tree showing some small and probably wormy apples on its branches. There was another tree not yet of an age to bear fruit, but Link did not know what it was.
And there was a girl with a watering can, carefully giving water to a row of radishes.
“Thana,” said Harl, troubled. “This’s Link Denham. He came down in that noise we heard a while ago. It was a spaceship. That whiskery fella came in it too. I’m goin’ to have to hang Link along with him—I hate to do it, because he seems a nice fella—but I thought I’d have you talk to him beforehand. Coming from far off, he might be able to tell you some of those things you’re always wishin’ you knew.”
To Link he added, “This’s my sister Thana. She runs this growin’ place and not many Households eat as fancy as mine does! See that apple tree?”
Link said, “Very pretty” and looked carefully at the girl. At this stage in his affairs he wasn’t overlooking any bets. She’d be a pretty girl if she had a less troubled expression. But she did not smile when she looked at him.
“You’d better talk to that whiskery man,” she said severely to her brother. “I had to have him put in a cage.”
“Why not just have a fella watch him?” demanded Harl. ‘Even if a man is goin’ to be hung, it ain’t manners not to make him comfortable.”
The girl looked at Link. She was embarrassed. She moved a little distance away. Harl went to her and she reported something in a low tone. Harl said vexedly, “Sput! I never heard of such a thing! I… never… heard of such a thing! Link, I’m goin’ to ask you to do me a favor.”
Link was in a state of very considerable confusion. It seemed settled that he faced a very undesirable experience. Hanging. But he was not treated as a criminal. Harl, in fact, seemed to feel rather apologetic about it and to wish Link well in everything but continued existence. But now he returned to Link, very angry.
“I’m going to ask you, Link,” he said indignantly, “to go see that whiskery fella and tell him there’s a end to my patience! He insulted me, an’ that’s all right. He’ll get hung for it and that’s the end of it. But you tell him he’s got to behave himself until he does get hung! When it comes to tryin’ to send a message to my sister—my sister, Link offerin’ to pay her for sendin’ a message to Old Man Addison, I’m not goin’ to stand for it! He’s gettin’ hung for sayin’ that to me! What more does he want?”
Link opened his mouth to suggest that perhaps Thistlethwaite wanted to get a message to Old Man Addison. But it did not seem tactful.
“You see him,” said Harl wrathfully. “If I was to go I’d prob’ly have him hung right off, and all my fellas that didn’t see it would think it was unmannerly of me not to wait. So you talk to him, will you?”
Link swallowed. Then he asked:
“How will I find him?”
“Go in yonder,” said Harl, pointing, “and ask an ufft to show you. There’ll be some house-uffts around. Ask any one of ’em.”
He turned back to his sister. Link headed for the pointed-out door. He heard Harl, behind him, saying angrily:
“If he don’t behave h
imself, sput! Hangin’s too good for him!”
But then Link passed through the door and heard no more. Uffts in their own village were openly derisive of Harl. But they sauntered about his house and slept on his floors and he certainly tolerated it. He found himself in a hallway with doors on either side and an unusually heavy door at the end. It occurred to him that he was nearly in the same fix as Thistlethwaite, though Thistlethwaite had wanted to send a message, while he’d only made a speech to the uffts. He groped for something that would make sense out of the situation.
An ufft slept tranquilly in the hall. It was very pig-like indeed. It looked like about a hundred-pound shote, with pinkish hide under a sparse coating of hair. Link stirred the creature with his foot. The ufft waked with a convulsive, frightened scramble of small hoofs.
“Where’s the jail?” asked Link. He’d just realized that he couldn’t make plans for himself alone, since Thistlethwaite was in the same fix. It made things look more difficult.
The ufft said sulkily, “What’s a jail?”
“In this case, the room where that man who’s to be hung is locked up,” said Link. “Where is it?”
“There isn’t any,” said the ufft, more sulkily than before. “And he’s not locked up in a room. He’s in a cage.”
“Then where’s the cage?”
“Around him,” said the ufft with an air of extreme fretfulness. “Just because you humans have paws isn’t any reason to wake people up when they’re resting.”
“You!” snapped Link. “Where’s that cage?
The ufft backed away affrightedly.
“Don’t do that!” it protested nervously. “Don’t threaten me! Don’t get me upset!”
It began to back away again. Link advanced upon the ufft. “Then tell me what I want to know!”
The ufft summoned courage. It bolted. Some distance away it halted at a branching passage to stare at Link in the same extreme unease.
“He’s in the cellar,” said the ufft. “Down there!”
The Duplicators Page 5
