If there can be a device which performs every sort of work a world wants done, then those who first have that instrument are rich beyond the dreams of anything but pride. But pride will make riches a drug upon the market. Men will no longer work, because there is no need for their work. Men will starve because there is no longer any need to provide them with food. There will be no way to earn necessities. One can only take them. And presently nobody will attempt to provide them to be taken.
Thana said interestedly, “There are stories about the fighting back on Surheil Two before our ancestors ran away. Everybody was trying to kill them because they had dupliers. They had to flee. It seems ridiculous, but they did run away, in spaceships, and they came here. There were only a few hundreds of them. The uffts made quite a fuss about their setting up Households, but the men had beer and the uffts couldn’t make it. They had no hands. So things got straightened out in time. But for a long, long while it was believed that nobody from any other world must ever be allowed to land here. I’m glad you landed, though.”
“To be hanged,” said Link.
But he understood the history of Sord Three better than she did. He could imagine the Economic Wars on Surheil Two, after the ancestors of Thana had fled. There were dupliers that weren’t taken away by the fugitives. A few. So men fought to possess them, and other men fought to take them away, and ultimately they’d be destroyed by men who couldn’t defend them. And then there’d be wholesale murder for food, and brigandage for what scraps were left. And at last civilization would have to start all over again with starving people and unplanted fields for a beginning. But no dupliers.
Here the disaster had taken a different form. While dupliers worked there was no need to learn useful things, such as the mechanical arts, and chemistry, and mineralogy. So such knowledge was forgotten. The art of weaving would vanish, too, when dupliers could make cloth to any demand. The composition of alloys. Electrical apparatus could not work without rare metals nobody knew how to find for the dupliers. So when the original units wore out there was no more electricity. And all cloth grows old and yellow and brittle, so old cloth, duplied, merely meant more old cloth, and alloy steel objects could not be reproduced, but only duplied, without the alloying materials, so there were only soft-iron knives and patched garments. And since the smallest of gardens, with any kind of vegetable matter for raw material, could have its produce duplied without limit, only the smallest of gardens were cultivated. Wherefore Harl’s Household was hung with rich drapery which was falling apart, the carpets on its floors were threadbare, and he was proud that his Household had one scrawny apple tree with wormy fruit on it. Because on Sord Three men were not needed to make things or grow things or do things. And Harl’s Household was ready to break apart.
“I begin,” said Link unhappily, “to agree with Harl. Since Thistlethwaite can’t hope to astrogate his ship if I’m hanged, he can’t report the state of things without me. So it’s probably wise to hang me. On the other hand I couldn’t run the ship’s engines, so I couldn’t take the news if he were hanged. But one or the other of us should be disposed of.”
Thana said sympathetically, “You feel terrible, don’t you? Let’s go see Harl. Maybe you’ll feel better. No, wait!” An idea had occurred to her. She surveyed a shelf of elaborately embroidered garments. She picked out one. “Do you think this is pretty?”
“Very,” said Link forlornly. There hadn’t been too many things he’d taken seriously, in his lifetime, but he did know that if dupliers got loose in the galaxy, there’d be no man certain of his life if he hadn’t a duplier, nor any man whose life was worth a pebble if he did.
“Fine!” said Thana brightly. “Come along!”
She picked up a bundle of what looked like ancient, yellowed, cloth scraps, plus a lump of bog-iron. She led the way into the great hall.
Her brother Harl was there, wearing an expression of patient gloom. There were two retainers, working at something which gradually became clear. A third man rolled in a large wheeled box from somewhere. It was filled to the brim with a confused mass of leaves and roots and branches and weeds. It was the mixture uffts had been dragging into the village in a wheeled cart some little while ago. As a mixture, it belonged on a compost heap or on a brush pile to be burned. But instead it was brought into the hall with the incredible, falling-apart, floor-to-ceiling draperies.
There was a stirring. The dais and the canopied chair moved. Together, chair and dais rose ceilingward. A deep pit was revealed where they had stood. And something rose in the pit, like a freight-elevator. It came plainly into view, and it was a complex metal contrivance with three hoppers on top which were plainly meant to hold things. One of the hoppers contained a damp mass of greenish powder in a highly irregular mound. One of Harl’s retainers began to brush that out into a box for waste. The middle hopper contained a pile of apples, all small, all scrawny, and each with a wormhole next its stem. It contained a bushel or more of lettuce heaped up with the apples. The rest of the hopper was filled with peas.
The third of the hoppers contained an exact duplicate of the contents of the middle hopper. Each leaf of lettuce in the third hopper was a duplicate of one in the middle hopper. Each apple was a duplicate of an apple in the middle hopper. Each pea—
“Pyramid it once more,” said Harl, “and it’ll be enough.”
His retainers piled the contents of the third hopper into the second. They piled the first one high with the contents of the box of vegetable debris. Link knew the theory now. The trash was vegetation. There were the same elements and same compounds in the trash as in apples, lettuce leaves, and peas. The proportions would be different, but the substance would be there. The duplier would take from the trash the materials needed to duplicate the sample edibles.
The same thing could more or less be done with roasts and steaks. Or elaborate embroidery, provided one had a sample for the duplier to work from. There would be left-over raw materials, of course, but a duplier could duplicate anything. Including a duplier.
And that was the thought which was frightening.
Harl said, “All right.”
The men moved back. The contrivance descended into the pit. The chair of state descended until its dais rested on the floor, covering the pit. Harl said casually:
“How’d you make out, Thana? Does Link know some of the things you were wonderin’ about?”
“Most of them,” said Thana confidently. “Nearly all!”
It was less than an accurate statement, and Link wondered morosely why she made it. But then Harl pressed the button. The chair of state rose. The deep pit was revealed. The metal contrivance rose to floor-level. The pile of assorted fragments in the first hopper had practically vanished. The fruit and lettuce and peas in the second hopper were unchanged. The third hopper was full of an exact duplicate of the assortment of edibles in the middle one.
“We don’t need any more,” observed Harl. “Just clean up and—”
“Wait!” said Thana. “I was showing Link things, and he admired this shirt.”
She unfolded the garment she’d asked Link’s opinion on. It was a shirt. It was lavishly embroidered. Link opened his mouth, but Harl said indulgently, “All right.”
Thana put the shirt in the middle—sample—hopper. Then she said:
“He told me the knife you’ve got is the prettiest he’s seen, too!”
Harl said, “Sput!” His tone was not entirely pleased. Then he said, “I got to have manners, huh?”
“Of course,” said Thana.
With a grimace, Harl unbuckled his belt and handed the belt and knife to Thana. She put them into the middle hopper. Then she put bog-iron, wood, and the scraps of cloth from the treasury room into the raw materials place. She nodded confidently to her brother.
He pressed something, the chair of state sank down, following the duplier mechanism, the room looked normal for a moment, and then the chair of state rose up, the pit appeared, and then the duplier.
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br /> There was much less bog-iron in the materials hopper. There was some sand on the hopper bottom. The embroidered shirt and the knife and belt were, as they’d been before, in the middle hopper. Exact duplicates of both knife and shirt were in the third hopper.
Thana handed her brother his knife. She took out and put aside the sample garment. She spread out its duplicate and said to Link, “Do put it on! Please!”
Harl watched impatiently, as Link took off his own shirt and donned the embroidered one. He was embarrassed by his own decorative appearance in the new apparel. Thana picked up the shirt he’d taken off.
“Look! This is unduplied, Harl!” she said with extravagant admiration. “Have you ever seen anything so wonderful?”
“Sput!” said Harl angrily. “What you tryin’ to do?”
“I’m saying that this is a wonderful shirt,” said Thana, beaming. “It isn’t duplied. It’s the nicest, newest shirt I’ve ever seen. Don’t you think so? I dare you to lie and still pretend you’ve manners!”
Harl said, “Sput!” again, and then, “All right,” he admitted peevishly. “It’s true. I never saw a new, unduplied shirt before. It’s a nice shirt.”
Thana turned triumphantly to Link. He didn’t see any reason for triumph. But she waited, and waited. Harl glared at him. Suddenly, Link understood. He might be scheduled to hang, but he was expected to be mannerly.
“The shirt is yours,” he said dourly to Harl. “It’s a gift.”
Harl hesitated for what seemed a long time. Then, “Thanks,” he said reluctantly. “It’s a right nice guest-gift. I appreciate it.”
Thana looked radiant. She sent one of the retainers, standing by, for all the cloth on the treasury room shelves. She fairly glowed with enthusiasm. She put Link’s former shirt in the sample hopper and filled another with scraps, and sent the duplier down. It came up and there were two shirts. It went down again with two shirts in the sample hopper. When it came up there were four. The chair of state and the duplier went down and up and down and up and down and up. When the last morsel of raw material was exhausted, there were one hundred twenty-seven duplicates of Link’s own shirt, besides the original shirt itself.
“I guess that’ll do,” said Harl, ungraciously. “I’ll be sendin’ gifts to all my friends, and all my own fellas will have new shirts, an’ their wives’ll be takin’ ’em apart to make dresses and sheets and stuff.” He nodded to Link. “I appreciate that shirt a lot, Link. Thanks.”
He went away, and Link stirred stiffly. He’d watched the entire process. Objects could be duplicated without labor or skill or industry. He’d observed what his mind told him was the doom of human civilization unless he or Thistlethwaite were hanged. Or both. But now he saw something more. Even that would not preserve the galaxy from destroying itself by riches out of dupliers. Eventually, certainly, another ship must land on Sord Three. It might be by accident. But some day another ship would come. And then this same intolerable situation would exist again.
“I’ll see about dinner now,” said Thana. She turned warm, grateful, admiring eyes upon Link, and vanished.
Harl shook his head as she disappeared.
“Smart girl, that! I wouldn’t ha’ thought of usin’ manners to get your shirt off your back so’s I could admire it and have the first new cloth since the old days! Mighty smart girl, Link!”
Link said stiffly, “If you’re through with taking my shirt in vain, what now?”
Harl looked surprised. “Oh, you go off somewheres and set down and rest yourself, Link,” he said kindly. “I got things to do. Excuse me!”
He departed. Link was left alone in the great hall, morbidly weighing the alternatives, himself or Thistlethwaite or both of them hanged against the collapse of all the economy of all the galaxy, with wars, murders, lootings and rapine as a necessary consequence. He didn’t have to ask what Thistlethwaite had planned to trade for, on Sord Three. It was dupliers. And dupliers could obviously duplicate each other as well as more commonplace objects. Thistlethwaite wanted to make contact with Old Man Addison to trade unduplied objects for dupliers. Old Man Addison was evidently so disreputable a Householder that he would do business, if tempted. He’d provide a shipload of dupliers, especially duplied for the off-planet trade, in exchange for objects that dupliers couldn’t duplicate on Sord Three. It would seem to him an excellent bargain.
It would seem an excellent bargain to business men elsewhere, too, to pay a hundred million credits and half the profits for a duplier. Thistlethwaite was right. Carynths were garbage in comparative value. A business man could begin with the luxury trade and undersell all other supplies, dispensing duplied luxury items. Then he could undersell any manufacturer of any other line of goods. He could undersell normally grown foodstuffs. Any supplier of meat products. Any supplier of anything else men needed or desired. All factories would become unprofitable. They’d close. All working men would become unemployed. All wages would cease to move except into a duplier-owner’s pockets. And then there would be disaster, calamity, collapse, destruction, and hell to pay generally.
And Thistlethwaite couldn’t foresee it. He was incapable of looking beyond an immediate, enormously profitable deal.
Link scowled. He alone could envision the coming disaster. He alone could think of measures to prevent it. And he was supposed to be hanged presently for a speech about an imaginary barber! It was wrong! It was monstrous! He had to stay alive to save the galaxy from the otherwise inevitable!
There was an ufft seemingly asleep in the far corner of the hall. As Link approached, the ufft opened its eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell Harl you admired Thana when he said she was a smart girl?”
The ufft had evidently been eavesdropping. It occurred to Link that there probably weren’t many human secrets unknown to the uffts. They lounged about the village streets and they casually napped or seemed to doze in the Householder’s home itself.
“Why should I say that?” asked Link irritably.
“If you want to marry her,” said the ufft, “that’s the start of it.”
“But I just met her!” said Link.
The ufft stirred, in a manner suggesting a shrug by a four-footed animal lying prone on the floor.
“And what are you going to do about Thistlethwaite?” the ufft demanded. “He’s going to escape. It’s all arranged. Three thousand bottles of beer, payable by written contract when he gets to Old Man Addison’s. But he’s mad with you. He says you’re not part of his organization anymore. You’re fired for disobeying orders to stay in the ship. He says he got you for an astrogator—what’s an astrogator?—because he couldn’t get anybody better. He says he can astrogate the ship to where he wants to go by doing everything you did, backwards.” Link thought sulfurous thoughts. The ufft went on, “He says he and Old Man Addison will make history on Sord Three. Why is Sord Three Sord Three? Why not just Sord?”
“Sord’s the sun,” said Link grimly, thinking of something else. “This is the third world from it.”
“That’s silly!” said the ufft. “What did you come here for, anyway? What did you expect to get out of it?”
“In spite,” said Link, “of the remarkable similarity between your interrogation and those of other individuals with equally dubious justification, I merely observe that my motivation is only to be revealed to properly constituted authorities, and refrain from telling you to go fly a kite.”
“What’s a kite?” asked the ufft.
Link said, “Look! I’m supposed to be hung presently. I disapprove of the idea. How about arranging for me to escape along with Thistlethwaite?”
The ufft said, “Five thousand beers?”
“I haven’t got them,” admitted Link.
“Three? Will Old Man Addison pay them for you?”
“I’ve never met him,” said Link.
“What else have you to offer, then?” asked the ufft in a businesslike tone. “I have to get a commission, of course.”
�
��I made a speech in the ufft city,” said Link hopefully, “on the way here from the ship. It was very well received. I may have some… hm… friends among my listeners who would think it unfortunate if I were hanged.”
The ufft got to its four feet. It stretched itself. It yawned. Then it said, “Too bad!”
It trotted out of the hall.
Link found himself angry. In fact, he raged. Thistlethwaite, if he escaped, might actually try to astrogate the Glamorgan back to Trent by the careful notes Link had made in the ship’s log. It wasn’t too likely he’d manage it, but it was possible. If he did, then Link would have died in vain. He went storming about the building. He hadn’t realized it, but it was now near sunset and what of the sky could be seen through windows was a flaming, crimson red. He came upon an ufft sauntering at ease from one room to another, and a second settling down for a tranquil nap. But he saw no human until he blundered into what must be a kitchen. There Thana bustled about in what must once have been a completely electrified kitchen, now with lamps which were simply floating wicks for illumination. There were two retainer girls assisting her. They used the former equipment as tables, and the cooking was done over a fire of dried-out leaves and twigs.
“Oh,” said Thana cordially. “Hello.”
“Listen!” said Link, “I want to make a protest!”
“I’m terribly busy,” said Thana pleasantly, “and anyhow Harl’s the one to tell about anything that’s missing in the treatment of a guest. Would you excuse me?”
Link changed his approach.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said rather desperately. “I think I know how to identify the kind of… of salt you want to add to bog-iron to make good knives from your unduplied sample.”
“For that,” said Thana warmly, “I’ll stop cooking! What is it, Link?”
The Duplicators Page 7
