The Ethical Engineer (the deathworld series)

by Harry Harrison

  Jason had his own plans and kept busy manufacturing a number of pieces of equipment that had nothing at all to do with his engine-overhauling business. While these were being assembled he went about lining up a little aid.

  “What would you do if I gave you a club?” he asked a burly slave whom he was helping to haul a log towards his workshop. Narsisi and one of his brothers lazed along out of earshot, bored by the routine of the guard duty.

  “What I do with club?” the slave grunted, forehead furrowing and mouth gaping open with the effort of thought.

  “That’s what I asked. And keep pulling while you think, I don’t want the guards to notice anything.”

  “If I have club, I kill!” the slave announced excitedly, fingers grasping eagerly for coveted weapon.

  “Would you kill me?”

  “I have club, I kill you, you not so big.”

  “But if I gave you the club wouldn’t I be your friend? Then wouldn’t you want to kill someone else?”

  The novelty of this alien thought stopped the slave dead and he scratched his head perplexedly until Narsisi lashed him back to work. Jason sighed and found another slave to try his sales program on.

  It took a while, but the idea was eventually percolating through the ranks of the slaves. All they had to look forward to from the D’zertanoj was backbreaking labor and an early death. Jason offered them something else, weapons, a chance to kill their masters, and even more killing later when they marched on Appsala. It was difficult for them to grasp the idea that they must work together to accomplish this and not kill Jason and each other as soon as they received weapons.

  It was a chancy plan at best, and would probably break down long before any visit could be made to the city. But the revolt should be enough to free them from bondage, even if the slaves fled afterwards. There were less than fifty D’zertanoj at this well station, all men, with their women and children at some other settlement further back in the hills. It would not be too hard to kill them or chase them off and long before they could bring reinforcements Jason and his runaway slaves would be gone. There was just one factor missing from his plans and a new draft of slaves solved even that problem for him.

  “Happy days,” he laughed, pushing open the door to his quarters and rubbing his hands together with glee. The guard shoved Mikah in after him and locked the door. Jason secured it with his own interior bolt then waved the two others over to the corner farthest from the door and tiny window opening.

  ***

  “New slaves today,” he told them, “and one of them is from Appsala, a mercenary or a soldier of some kind that they captured on a skirmish. He knows that they will never let him live long enough to leave here, so he was grateful for any suggestions I had.”

  “This is man’s talk I do not understand,” Ijale said, turning away and starting towards the cooking fire.

  “You’ll understand this,” Jason said, taking her by the shoulder. “The soldier knows where Appsala is and can lead us there. The time has come to think about leaving this place.”

  He had all of her attention now, and Mikah’s as well, “How is this?” she gasped.

  “I have been making my plans, I have enough files and lockpicks now to crack into every room in this place, a few weapons, the key to the armory and every able bodied slave on my side.”

  “What do you plan to do?” Mikah asked.

  “Stage a servile revolt in the best style. The slaves fight the D’zertanoj and we get away, perhaps with an army helping us, but at least we get away.”

  “You are talking revolution!” Mikah bellowed and Jason jumped him and knocked him to the floor. Ijale held his legs down while Jason squatted on his chest and covered his mouth.

  “What is the matter with you? Want to spend the rest of your life rebuilding stolen engines? They are guarding us too well for there to be much chance of our breaking out on our own, so we need allies. We have them ready made, all the slaves.”

  “Brevilushun….” Mikah mumbled through the restraining fingers.

  “Of course it’s a revolution. It is also the only possible chance of survival that these poor devils will ever have. Now they are human cattle, beaten and killed on whim. You can’t be feeling sorry for the D’zertanoj — every one of them is a murderer ten times over. You’ve seen them beat people to death. Do you feel that they are too nice to suffer a revolution?”

  Mikah relaxed and Jason removed his hand slightly, ready to clamp down if the other’s voice rose above a whisper.

  “Of course they are not nice, beasts in human garb is more truthful. I feel no mercy for them and they should be wiped out and blotted from the face of the earth as was Sodom and Gomorrah. But it cannot be done by revolution, revolution is evil, inherently evil.”

  Jason stifled a groan. “Try telling that to two-thirds of the governments that now exist, since that’s about how many were founded by revolution. Nice, liberal democratic governments — that were started by a bunch of lads with guns and the immense desire to run things in a manner more beneficial to themselves. How else do you get rid of the powers on your neck if there is no way to legally vote them away? If you can’t vote them — shoot them.”

  “Bloody revolution, it cannot be!”

  “All right, no revolution,” Jason said, getting up and wiping his hands disgustedly. “We’ll change the name. How about calling it a prison break? No, you wouldn’t like that either. I have it — liberation! We are going to strike the chains off these poor people and restore them to the lands from which they were stolen. The tiny fact that the slave holders regard them as property and won’t think much of the idea, therefore might get hurt in the process, shouldn’t bother you. So — will you join me in this Liberation Movement?”

  “It is still revolution.”

  “It is whatever I decide to call it!” Jason raged. “You come along with me on the plans or you will be left behind when we go. You have my word on that.” He stomped over and helped himself to some soup and waited for his anger to simmer down.

  “I cannot do it… I cannot do it,” Mikah brooded, staring into his rapidly cooling soup as into an oracular crystal ball, seeking guidance there. Jason turned his back in disgust.

  ***

  “Don’t end up like him,” he warned Ijale, pointing his spoon back over his shoulder. “Not that there is much chance that you ever will coming as you do from a society with its feet firmly planted on the ground, or on the grave to be more accurate. Your people see only concrete facts, and only the most obvious ones, and as simple an abstraction as ‘trust’ seems beyond you. While this long-faced clown can only think in abstractions of abstractions, and the more unreal they are the better. I bet he even worries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

  “I do not worry about it,” Mikah broke in, overhearing the remark. “But I do think about it once in a while, it is a problem that cannot be lightly dismissed.”

  “You see?”

  Ijale nodded. “If he is wrong, and I am wrong — then you must be the only one who is right.” She nodded in satisfaction at the thought.

  “Very nice of you to say so,” Jason smiled. “And true, too. I lay no claims to infallibility but I am sure that I can see the difference between abstractions and facts a lot better than either of you, and I am certainly more adroit at handling them. The Jason dinAlt fan club meeting is now adjourned.” He reached his hand over his shoulder and patted himself on the back.

  “Monster of arrogance,” Mikah bellowed.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Pride goeth before a fall! You are a maledicent and idolatrous antipietist….”

  “Very good.”

  “… And I grieve that I could have considered aiding you for even a second, or of standing by while you sin, and fear for the weakness of my own soul that I have not been able to resist temptation as I should. It grieves me, but I must do my duty.” He banged loudly on the door. “Guard! Guard!”

  Jason dropped his
bowl and started to scramble to his feet, but slipped in the spilled soup and fell. As he stood again the locks rattled on the door and it opened. If he could reach Mikah before the idiot opened his mouth he would close it forever, or at least knock him out before it was too late.

  It was too late. Narsisi poked his head in and blinked sleepily; Mikah struck his most dramatic pose and pointed to Jason. “Seize and arrest that man, I denounce him for attempted revolution, for planning red murder!”

  Jason skidded to a halt and back-tracked, diving into a bag of his personal belongings that lay against the wall. He scrabbled in it, then kicked the contents about and finally came up with a metal-forming hammer that had a weighty solid lead head.

  “More traitor you,” Jason shouted at Mikah as he ran at Narsisi who had been dumbly watching the performance and mulling over Mikah’s words. Slow as he appeared, there was nothing wrong with his reflexes and his shield snapped up and took Jason’s blow while his club spun over neatly and rapped Jason on the back of the hand: the numbed fingers opened and the hammer dropped to the floor.

  “I think you two better come with me, my father will know what to do,” he said, pushing Jason and Mikah ahead of him out the door. He locked it and called for one of his brothers to stand guard, then poked his captives down the hall. They shuffled along in their leg-irons, Mikah nobly as a martyr and Jason seething and grinding his teeth.

  Edipon was not at all stupid when it came to slave rebellions, and sized up the situation even faster than Narsisi could relate it.

  “I have been expecting this, so it comes as no surprise.” His eyes held a mean little glitter when he leveled them at Jason. “I knew the time would come when you would try to overthrow me, which was why I permitted this other to assist you and to learn your skills. As I expected he has betrayed you to gain your position, which I award him now.”

  “Betray? I did this for no personal gain,” Mikah protested.

  “Only the purest of motives,” Jason laughed coldly. “Don’t believe a word this pious crook tells you, Edipon. I’m not planning any revolutions, he just said that to get my job.”

  “You caluminate me, Jason! I never lie — you are planning revolt. You told me — ”

  “Silence both of you, or I’ll have you beaten to death. This is my judgment. The slave Mikah has betrayed the slave Jason, and whether the slave Jason is planning rebellion or not is completely unimportant. His assistant would have not denounced him unless he was sure that he could do the work as well, which is the only fact that has any importance to me. Your ideas about a worker-class have troubled me Jason. I will be glad to kill them and you at the same time. Chain him with the slaves. Mikah, I award you Jason’s quarter and woman, and as long as you do the work well I will not kill you. Do it a long time and you will live a long time.

  “Only the purest of motives, is that what you said, Mikah?” Jason shouted back as he was kicked from the room.

  ***

  The descent from the pinnacle of power was fast and smooth. Within half an hour new shackles were on Jason’s wrists and he was chained to the wall in a dark room filled with other slaves. His leg-irons had been left on as an additional reminder of his new status. He rattled the chains and examined them in the dim light of a distant lamp as soon as the door was closed.

  “How comes the revolution?” the slave chained next to him leaned over and asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Very funny, ha-ha,” Jason grumbled, then moved closer for a better look at the man who had a fine case of strabismus, his eyes pointing in independent directions. “You look familiar… are you the new slave I talked to today?”

  “That’s me, Snarbi, fine soldier, pikeman, checked out on club and dagger, seven kills and two possibles on my record, you can check it yourself at the guild hall.”

  “I remember it all Snarbi, including the fact that you know your way back to Appsala.”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “Then the revolution is still on, in fact it is starting right now but I want to keep it small. Instead of freeing all these slaves what do you say to the idea that we two escape by ourselves?”

  “Best idea I heard since torture was invented, we don’t need all these stupid people. They just get in the way. Keep the operation small and fast, that’s what I always say.”

  “I always say that, too,” Jason agreed, digging into his boot with his fingertip. He had managed to shove his best file and a lockpick into hiding there while Mikah was betraying him back in their room. The attack on Narsisi with the hammer had just been a cover up.

  Jason had made the file himself after many attempts at manufacturing and hardening steel, and the experiments had been successful. He picked out the clay that covered the cut he had made in his leg-cuffs and tackled the soft iron with vigor; within three minutes they were lying on the floor.

  “You a magician?” Snarbi whispered, shuddering back.

  “Mechanic. On this planet they’re the same thing.” He looked around but the exhausted slaves were all asleep and had heard nothing. Wrapping a piece of leather around it to muffle the sound he began to file a link in the chain that secured the shackles on his wrists. “Snarbi,” he asked, “are we on the same chain?”

  “Yeah, the chain goes through these iron cuff things and holds the whole row of slaves together, the other end goes out through a hole in the wall.”

  “Couldn’t be better. I’m filing one of these links, and when it goes we’re both free. See if you can’t slip the chain through the holes in your shackles and lay it down without letting the next slave know what is happening. We’ll wear these iron cuffs for now, there is no time to play around with them and they shouldn’t bother us too much. Do the guards come through here at all during the night to check on the slaves?”

  “Not since I’ve been here, just wake us up in the morning by pulling on the chain.”

  “Then let’s hope that’s what happens again tonight, because we are going to need plenty of time — there!” The file had cut through the link. “See if you can get enough of a grip on the other end of this link while I hold this end, we’ll try and bend it open a bit.” They strained silently until the opening gaped wide and the next link fitted through the cut.

  They slipped the chain and laid it silently on the ground, then drifted noiselessly to the door.

  “Is there a guard outside?” Jason asked.

  “Not that I know. I don’t think they have enough men here to guard all the slaves.”

  The door would not budge when they pushed against it, and there was just light enough to make out the large keyhole of a massive inset lock. Jason probed lightly with the pick and curled his lip in contempt.

  “These idiots have left the key in the lock.” He pulled off the stiffest of his leather wrappings and after flattening it out pushed it under the badly fitting bottom edge of the door, leaving just a bit to hold onto. Then he poked lightly at the key through the keyhole and heard it thud to the ground outside. When he pulled the leather back in the key was lying in the center of it. The door unlocked silently and a moment later they were outside, staring tensely into the darkness.

  “Let’s go! Run, get away from here,” Snarbi said and Jason grabbed him by the throat and pulled him back.

  “Isn’t there one drop of constructive intelligence on this planet? How are you going to get to Appsala without food or water, and if you find some — how can you carry enough? You want to stay alive follow my instructions. I’m going to lock this door first so that no one stumbles onto our escape by accident. Then we are going to get some transport and leave here in style. Agreed?”

  The answer was only a choked rattle until Jason opened his fingers a bit and let some air into the man’s lungs. A labored groan must have meant assent because Snarbi tottered after him when he made his way through the dark alleys between the buildings.

  Getting clear of the walled refinery town presented no problem since the few sentries were only looking for trouble fr
om the outside. It was equally easy to approach Jason’s leather-walled worksite from the rear and slip through it at the spot where Jason had cut the leather and sewn up the opening with thin twine.

  “Sit here and touch nothing or you will be cursed for life,” he commanded the shivering Snarbi, then slipped towards the front entrance with a small sledge hammer clutched in his fist. He was pleased to see one of Edipon’s other sons on guard duty, leaning against a pole and dozing. Jason gently lifted his leather helm with his free hand and tapped once with the hammer: the guard slept even more soundly.

  “Now we can get to work,” Jason said when he had returned inside, and clicked a firelighter to the wick of a lantern.

  “What are you doing? They’ll see us, kill us — escaped slaves.”

  “Stick with me Snarbi and you’ll be wearing shoes. Lights here can’t be seen by the sentries, I made sure of that when I sited the place. And we have a piece of work to do before we leave — we have to build a caroj.”

  They did not have to build it from scratch, but there was enough truth in the statement to justify it. His most recently rebuilt and most powerful engine was still bolted to the test stand, a fact that justified all the night’s risks. Three caroj wheels lay among the other debris of the camp and two of them were to be bolted to the engine while it was still on the stand. The ends of the driving axle cleared the edges of the stand, Jason threaded the securing wheel bolts into place and utilized Snarbi to tighten them.

  At the other end of the stand was a strong, swiveling post that had been a support for his test instruments, and seemed strangely large for this small task. It was. When the instruments were stripped away a single bar remained projecting backwards like a tiller handle. When a third wheel was fitted with a stub axle and slid into place in the forked lower end of the post the test stand looked remarkably like a three-wheeled, steerable, steam engine powered platform that was mounted on legs. This is exactly what it was, what Jason had designed it to be from the first, and the supporting legs came away with the same ease that the other parts had been attached. Escape had always taken first priority in his plans.