‘Local slang,’ chipped in Grayder. ‘An awful lot of it develops in four centuries. I’ve come across one or two worlds where there has been so much of it that to all intents and purposes it formed a new language.’
‘He understood your speech?’ asked the Ambassador of Shelton.
‘Yes, Your Excellency. And his own is quite good. But he won’t leave his work.’ He reflected briefly, suggested, ‘If it were left to me I’d bring him in by force with an armed escort.’
‘That would encourage him to give essential information,’ commented the Ambassador with open sarcasm. He patted his stomach, smoothed his jacket, glanced down at his glossy shoes. ‘Nothing for it but to go and speak to him myself.’
Shelton was shocked. ‘Your Excellency, you can’t do that!’
‘Why can’t I?’
‘It would be undignified.’
‘I am fully aware of the fact,’said the Ambassador dryly. ‘What alternative do you suggest?’
‘We can send out a patrol to find someone more co-operative.’
‘Someone better informed, too,’ Captain Grayder offered. ‘At best we won’t get much out of one surly hayseed. I doubt whether he knows one quarter of what we require to learn.’
‘All right.’ The Ambassador dropped the idea of doing his own chores. ‘Organise a patrol and let’s have some results.’
‘A patrol,’ said Colonel Shelton to Major Hame. ‘Nominate one immediately.’
‘Call out a patrol,’ Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon. ‘At once.’
‘Parade a patrol forthwith, Sergeant Major,’ said Deacon.
Bidworthy lumbered up the gangway, stuck his head into the airlock and shouted,’ sergeant Gleed, out with your squad and make it snappy!’ He gave a suspicious sniff and went farther into the lock. His voice gained several more decibels. ‘Who’s been smoking? By heavens, if I catch the man—’
Across the fields something quietly went chuff-chuff while fat wheels crawled along.
The patrol formed by the right in two ranks of eight men each, turned at a barked command and marched off in the general direction of the ship’s nose. They moved with perfect rhythm if no great beauty of motion. Their boots thumped in unison, their accoutrements clattered with martial noises and the orange-coloured sun made sparkles on their metal.
Sergeant Gleed did not have to take his men far. They were one hundred yards beyond the ship’s great snout when he noticed a man ambling across the field to his right. Treating the ship with utter indifference, this character was making toward the farmer still toiling far over to the left.
‘Patrol, right wheel!’ yelled Gleed, swift to take advantage of the situation. The patrol right-wheeled, marched straight past the wayfarer who couldn’t be bothered even to wave a handkerchief at them. Now Gleed ordered an about-turn and followed it with a take-him gesture.
Speeding up its pace, the patrol opened its ranks and became a double file of men tramping on either side of the lone pedestrian. Ignoring his suddenly acquired escort the latter continued to plod straight ahead like one long convinced that all is illusion.
‘Left wheel!’ roared Gleed, trying to bend the whole caboodle toward the waiting Ambassador.
Swiftly obedient, the double file headed leftward, one, two, three, hup! It was neat, precise execution beautiful to watch. Only one thing spoiled it: the man in the middle stubbornly maintained his self-chosen orbit and ambled casually between numbers four and five of the right-hand file.
That upset Gleed, especially since the patrol continued to thump steadily ambassadorwards for lack of a further order. His Excellency was being treated to the unmilitary spectacle of an escort dumbly boot-beating one way while its prisoner airily mooched another way. In due course Colonel Shelton would have plenty to say about it and anything he forgot Bidworthy would remember.
‘Patrol!’ hoarsed Gleed, pointing an outraged finger at the escapee and momentarily dismissing all regulation commands from his mind, ‘Get that mug!’
Breaking ranks, they moved at the double and surrounded the wanderer too closely to permit further progress. Perforce he stopped.
Gleed came up and said somewhat breathlessly, ‘Look, the Earth Ambassador wants to speak to you—that’s all.’
The other gazed at him with mild blue eyes. He was a funny looking sample, long overdue for a shave. He had a fringe of ginger whiskers sticking out all around his face and bore faint resemblance to a sunflower.
‘I should care,’ be said.
‘Are you going to talk with His Excellency?’ Gleed persisted.
‘Naw.’ The other nodded toward the farmer. ‘Going to talk to Zeke.’
‘The Ambassador first,’ retorted Gleed, wearing his tough expression. ‘He’s a big noise.’
‘I don’t doubt that,’ remarked the sunflower, showing what sort of a noise he had in mind.
‘Smartie Artie, eh?’ grated Gleed, pushing his face close and making it unpleasant. He signed to his men. ‘All right, hustle him along. We’ll show him!’
Smartie Artie chose this moment to sit down. He did it sort of solidly, giving himself the aspect of a squatting statue anchored for the remainder of eternity. But Gleed had handled sitters before, the only difference being that this one was cold sober.
‘Pick him up,’ commanded Gleed, ‘and carry him.’
So they picked him up and carried him, feet first, whiskers last. He hung limp and unresisting in their hands, a dead weight made as difficult as possible to bear. In this inauspicious manner he arrived in the presence of the Ambassador where the escort plonked him on his feet.
Promptly he set out for Zeke.
‘Hold him, darn you!’ howled Gleed.
The patrol grabbed and clung tight. The Ambassador eyed the whiskers with well-bred concealment of distaste, coughed delicately and spoke.
‘I am truly sorry that you had to come to me in this fashion.’
‘In that case,’ suggested the prisoner, ‘you could have saved yourself some mental anguish by not permitting it to happen.’
‘There was no other choice. We’ve got to make contact somehow.’
‘I don’t see it’ said Ginger Whiskers. ‘What’s so special about this date?’
‘The date?’ The Ambassador frowned in puzzlement. ‘What has the date got to do with it?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m asking.’
‘The point eludes me.’ The Ambassador turned to the others. ‘Do you understand what he’s aiming at?’
Shelton said, ‘I can hazard a guess, Your Excellency. I think he is hinting that since we’ve left them without contact for four hundred years there is no particular urgency about making it today.’ He looked to the sunflower for confirmation.
That worthy rallied to his support by remarking, ‘You’re doing pretty well for a halfwit.’
Regardless of Shelton’s own reaction, this was too much for Bidworthy purpling nearby. His chest came up and his eyes caught fire. His voice was an authoritative rasp.
‘Be more respectful while addressing high-ranking officers!’
The prisoner’s mild blue eyes turned upon him in childish amazement, examined him slowly from feet to head and all the way down again. The eyes drifted back inquiringly to the Ambassador.
‘Who is this preposterous person?’
Dismissing the question with an impatient wave of his hand, the Ambassador said, ‘see here, it is not our purpose to bother you from sheer perversity, as you seem to think. Neither do we wish to detain you any longer than is necessary. All w—’
Pulling at his face-fringe as if to accentuate its offensiveness, the other interjected, ‘It being you, of course, who determines the length of the necessity?’
‘On the contrary, you may decide that for yourself,’ gave back the Ambassador, displaying admirable self-control. ‘All you need do is tell us—’
‘Then I’ve decided it right now,’ the prisoner chipped in. He tried to heave himself free of his escort .‘Let
me go talk to Zeke.’
‘All you need do,’ the Ambassador persisted, ‘is tell us where we can find a local official who can put us into touch with your central government.’ His gaze was stern, commanding, as he added, ‘For instance where is the nearest police post?’
‘Myob!’ said Ginger Whiskers.
‘What was that?’
‘Myob!’
‘The same to you,’ retorted the Ambassador, his patience evaporating.
‘That’s precisely what I’m trying to do,’ insisted the prisoner, enigmatically. ‘Only you won’t let me do it.’
If I may make a suggestion, Your Excellency,’ but in Shelton, ‘allow me—’
‘I require no suggestions and I won’t allow you,’ said the Ambassador, somewhat out of temper. ‘I have had enough of all this stupid tomfoolery. I think we have landed at random in an area reserved for imbeciles. It would be as well to recognize the fact and get out of it with no more delay.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ approved Ginger Whiskers. ‘And the farther the better.’
‘We have no intention of leaving this planet, if that is what’s in your incomprehensible mind,’ asserted the Ambassador. He stamped a proprietory foot into the turf. ‘This is part of the Terran Empire. As such it is going to be recognized, charted and organized.’
‘Heah, heah!’ put in the senior civil servant who aspired to honours in elocution.
His Excellency threw a frown behind, went on, ‘We’ll move the ship to some other section where brains are brighter.’ He turned attention to the escort. ‘Let him go. Probably he is in a hurry to borrow a razor.’
They released their grips. Ginger Whiskers at once turned toward the distant farmer much as if he were a magnetized needle irresistibly drawn Zekeward. Without another word he set off at his original slovenly pace. Disappointment and disgust showed on the faces of Bidworthy and Gleed as they watched him depart.
‘Have the vessel shifted at once, Captain,’ the Ambassador said to Grayder. ‘Plant it near to a likely town—not out in the wilds where every yokel views strangers as a bunch of crooks.’
He marched importantly up the gangway. Captain Grayder followed, then Colonel Shelton, then the elocutionist. Next, their successors in correct order of precedence. Lastly, Gleed and his men. The airlock closed. The warning siren sounded. Despite its immense bulk the ship shivered briefly from end to end and soared without deafening uproar or spectacular display of flame.
Indeed, there was silence save for a little engine going chuff-chuff and the murmurings of the two men walking behind it. Neither took the trouble to look around to see what was happening.
‘Seven pounds of prime tobacco is a heck of a lot to give for one case of brandy,’ Ginger Whiskers protested.
‘Not for my brandy,’ said Zeke. ‘It’s stronger than a thousand Gandshttp://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php - index
and smoother than an Earthman’s downfall.’
Chapter 2
The great ship’s next touchdown was made on a wide flat about two miles north of a town estimated to hold twelve to fifteen thousand people. Grayder would have preferred to survey the place from low altitude before making his landing but one cannot handle a huge space-going vessel as if it were an atmospheric tug. Only two things can be done when so close to a planetary surface—the ship is taken straight up or brought straight down with no room for fiddling between-times.
So Grayder dumped the ship in the best spot he could find when finding is a matter of split-second decisions. It made a rut only ten feet deep, the ground being hard with a rock bed. The gangway was shoved out. The procession descended in the same order as before.
Casting an anticipatory look toward the town, the Ambassador registered irritation. ‘Something is badly out of kilter here. There’s the town not so far away. Here we are in plain view with a ship like a metal mountain. At least a thousand people must have seen us coming down even if all the rest are holding seances behind drawn curtains or playing poker in the cellars. Are they interested? Are they excited?’
‘It doesn’t seem so,’ contributed Shelton, pulling industriously at an eyelid for the sake of feeling it spring back.
‘I wasn’t asking you. I am telling you. They are not excited. They are not surprised. They are not even interested. One would almost think they’d had a ship here that was full of smallpox or that swindled them out of something. what’s wrong with them?’
‘Possibly they lack curiosity,’ Shelton ventured.
‘Either that or they’re afraid. Or maybe the entire gang of them is more cracked than any bunch on any other world. Practically all these planets were appropriated by dotty people who wanted to establish a haven where their eccentricities could run loose. And nutty notions become conventional after four hundred years of undisturbed continuity. It is then considered normal and proper to nurse the bats out of your grandfather’s attic. That and generations of inbreeding can create some queer types. But we’ll cure them before we’re through.’
‘Yes, Your Excellency, most certainly we will.’
‘You don’t look so well-balanced yourself, chasing that eyelid around your face,’ reproved the Ambassador. He pointed south-east as Shelton stuck the fidgety hand firmly into a pocket. ‘There’s a road over there. Wide and well-built by the looks of it. They don’t construct a highway for the mere fun of it. Ten to one it’s an important artery.’
‘That’s how it looks to me,’ Shelton agreed.
‘Put that patrol across it, Colonel. If your men don’t bring in a willing talker within reasonable time we’ll send the entire battalion into the town itself.’
‘A patrol,’ said Shelton to Major Hame.
‘Call out the patrol,’ Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon.
‘That patrol again, Sergeant Major,’ said Deacon.
Bidworthy raked out Gleed and his men, indicated the road, barked a bit and shooed them on their way.
They marched, Gleed in front. Their objective was half a mile away and angled toward the town. The left-hand file had a clear view of the nearest suburbs, eyed the buildings wistfully, wished Gleed in warmer regions with Bidworthy stoking the hell-fire beneath him.
Hardly had they reached their goal than a customer appeared. He came from the town’s outskirts, zooming along at fast pace on a contraption vaguely like a motorcycle. It ran on a big pair of rubber balls and was pulled by a caged fan. Gleed spread his men across the road.
The oncomer’s machine suddenly gave forth a harsh, penetrating sound that reminded everybody of Bidworthy in the presence of dirty boots.
‘Stay put,’ warned Gleed. ‘I’ll skin the fellow who gives way and leaves a gap.’
Again the shrill metallic warning. Nobody moved. The machine slowed, came up to them at a crawl and stopped. Its fan continued to spin at slow rate, the blades almost visible and giving out a steady hiss.
‘What’s the idea?’ demanded the rider. He was lean-featured, in his middle thirties, wore a gold ring in his nose and had a pigtail four feet long.
Blinking incredulously at this get-up, Gleed managed to jerk an indicative thumb toward the metal mountain and say, ‘Earthship.’
‘Well, what do you expect me to do about it?—throw a fit of hysterics?’
‘We expect you to co-operate,’ informed Gleed, still bemused by the pigtail. He had never seen such a thing before. It was in no way effeminate, he decided. Rather did it lend a touch of ferocity like that worn—according to the picture books—by certain North American aborigines in the dim and distant past.
‘Co-operation,’ mused the rider. ‘Now there is a beautiful word. You know exactly what it means, of course?’
‘I’m not a dope.’
‘The precise degree of your idiocy is not under discussion at the moment,’ the rider pointed out. His nose-ring waggled a bit as he spoke. ‘We are talking about co-operation. I take it you do quite a lot of it yourself?’
‘You bet I do,’ Gleed assured. ‘An
d so does everyone else who knows what’s good for him.’
‘Let’s keep to the subject, shall we? Let’s not sidetrack and go rambling all over the conversational map.’ He revved up his fan a little then let it slow down again. ‘You are given orders and you obey them?’
‘Of course. I’d have a rough time if—’
‘That is what you call co-operation?’ put in the other. He hunched his shoulders, pursed his bottom lip. ‘Well, it’s nice to check the facts of history. The books could be wrong.’ His fan flashed into a circle of light and the machine surged forward. ‘Pardon me.’
The front rubber ball barged forcefully between two men, knocking them aside without injury. With a high whine the machine shot down the road, its fan-blast making its rider’s plaited hairdo point horizontally backward.
‘You substandard morons!’ raged Gleed as the pair got up and dusted themselves. ‘I told you to stand fast What d’you mean by letting him run out on us like that?’
‘Didn’t have much choice about it, Sarge,’ answered one surlily.
‘I want none of your back-chat. You could have busted one of his balloons if you’d had your guns ready. That would have stopped him.’
‘You didn’t tell us to use our guns.’
‘Where was your own, anyway?’ added a sneaky voice.
Gleed whirled on the others and demanded, ‘Who said that?’ His eyes raked a long row of impassive faces. It was impossible to detect the culprit ‘I’ll shake you up with the next quota of fatigues,’ he promised. ‘I’ll see to it that—’
‘The Sergeant Major’s coming,’ one of them warned.
Bidworthy was four hundred yards away and making martial progress towards them. Arriving in due time, he cast a cold, contemptuous glance over the patrol.
‘What happened?’
‘Giving me a lot of lip, he was,’ complained Gleed after providing a brief account of the incident. ‘He looked like one of those Chickasaws with an oil-well.’
‘Did he really?’ Bidworthy surveyed him a moment, then invited, ‘And what is a Chickasaw?’
Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One Page 82
