The Duplicators Page 4

  He slipped from his saddle, hung Thistlethwaite’s stun gun on his saddle horn, and leaned his spear against the Glamorgan. He held out his hand cordially to Link. Link shook it. Harl’s followers similarly divested themselves of weapons. They solemnly shook hands with Link. Harl rapped on one of the Glamorgan’s hull plates and said admiringly:

  “This here ship’s iron, ain’t it? M-m-m-h! I never saw so much iron to one place in all my lifetime!”

  A scornful voice from somewhere said indignantly, “We saw it first! It’s ours!”

  “Shut up,” said Harl to the landscape at large. “And stay shut up.” He turned, “Now, Link—”

  “We saw it first!” insisted the voice furiously. “We saw it first! It’s ours!”

  “This gentleman,” said Harl firmly, and again to the landscape, “is maybe thinkin’ of settin’ up a Household here! You uffts clear out!”

  Two voices, now, insisted stridently:

  “It’s ours! We saw it first! It’s ours!”

  Harl said apologetically:

  “I’m real sorry, Link, but you know how it is with uffts! Uh… I’d like to ask you something private.”

  “Come inside,” said Link. He rose.

  Harl and his companions—Link thought of the word “retainers” for no special reason—came trooping into the port. Link was very alertly interested. He didn’t understand this state of things at all, but men with inhospitable intentions do not disarm themselves. These men had. Men with unpleasant purposes tend to cast furtive glances from one to another. These men didn’t. If one ignored the presence of Thistlethwaite’s garments, and the absence of Thistlethwaite himself, the atmosphere was almost insanely cordial and friendly and uncalculating. It verified past question that this planet had very little contact with other worlds. People of brisk and progressive cultures feel a deep suspicion of strangers and of each other. With reason. Yet Thistlethwaite—

  Link let the small group precede him up the steps inside the landing fin. He could get down and outside before any of them, and very probably lock them in. Then he’d be armed and mounted, which in case of unfriendliness might be an advantage. But in spite of whatever had happened to Thistlethwaite, the feel of things was in no sense ominous. The visitors to the ship were openly curious and openly astonished at what they saw.

  They commented almost incredulously that the long flight of steps was made of iron. Link tactfully did not refer to the sealed-off cargo compartments—the lifeboat was sealed off, too—nor to Thistlethwaite’s garments worn so matter-of-factly by his guests. They passed the engine room without recognizing the door to it as what it was. They marveled to each other that iron showed through the worn floor-covering of the mess room. They were astounded by the cabins. But the control room left them entirely uninterested except for small metal objects—instruments—fastened to the control board and fitted into the walls.

  The man wearing Thistlethwaite’s pants took a deep breath. He caught Link’s eye and said wistfully:

  “Mistuh Link, that’s a right pretty little thing!”

  He pointed to the ship’s chronometer. Harl said angrily:

  “You shut up! What kinds guest-gift have you brought? I beg y’pardon, Link, for this fella!” He glared at his following. “Sput! You fellas go downstairs an’ wait outside, so’s you won’t shame me again! I got to talk confidential to Mistuh Link, anyway.”

  His followers, still flaunting Thistlethwaite’s garments, went trooping down and out. Silence fell, below. Then Harl said:

  “Link, I’m right sorry about that fella! Admirin’ something of yours to get it, without givin’ you a gift first! I’d ought to chase him outa my Household for bad manners! I hope you’ll excuse me for him!”

  “No harm done,” said Link. “He just forgot.” It was evident that etiquette played a great part in the lives of the people of Sord Three. It looked promising. “I’d like to ask—”

  Harl said confidentially, “Let’s talk private, Link. Do you know a little fella with whiskers that cusses dreadful an’ insults people right an’ left an’ says—” his voice dropped to a shocked tone—“an’ says he’s a friend of Old Man Addison? A fella like that come to my Household and—you maybe won’t believe this, Link, but it’s so—he offered to pay me for sendin’ a message to Old Man Addison! He… offered to… pay me! Like I was an ufft! I’m beggin’ your pardon for askin’ such a thing, but we’re talkin’ private. Do you know a fella like that?”

  “He ran the engines of this ship,” said Link. “His name’s Thistlethwaite. I don’t know what he has to do with Old Man Addison.”

  “Natural!” said Harl hastily. “I wouldn’t suspect you of anything like that! But… uh… the womenfolks said his clothes wasn’t duplied. Is that a fact, Link? They went crazy fingerin’ the cloth he was wearin’. Was it unduplied, Link?”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about his clothes,” said Link. “I did notice your men were wearing them. I wondered.”

  “But you didn’t say a word,” said Harl, warmly. “Yes, suh! You got manners! But did you ever hear anything like what I just told you? Offerin’ to pay me—and me a Householder—for sendin’ a message to Old Man Addison! Did you ever, Link?”

  “It’s bad?” asked Link, blinking.

  “I left word,” said Harl indignantly, “to hang him as soon as enough folks got together to enjoy it. What else could I do? But I’d heard the noise when this ship came down, and it was you, landin’ here! It’s a great thing havin’ you land here, Link! And think of havin’ clothes that ain’t duplied! If you set up a Household—”

  Link stared. He’d always believed that he craved the new and the unpredictable. But this talk left him way behind. He felt that it would be a good idea to go off by himself and hold his head for a while. Yet Thistlethwaite—

  “Sput!” said Harl, frowning to himself. “Here I am, guestin’ with you, an’ no guest-gift! But in a way you’re guestin’ with me, being this is on my Household land. And I ain’t been hospitable! Look, Link! I’ll send a ufft over with a message to hold up the hangin’ till we get there and we’ll go watch with the rest. What say?”

  For perhaps the first time in his life, Link felt that things were a good deal more unexpected than he entirely enjoyed. There was only one way to stay ahead of developments until he could sort things out.

  “That suggestion,” he said profoundly, “is highly consistent with the emergency measures I feel should be substituted for apparently standard operational procedures with reference to discourteous space travelers.” He saw that Harl looked at once blank and admiring, which was what he’d hoped. “In other words,” said Link, “yes.”

  “Then let’s get started,” said Harl in a pleased tone. “Y’know, Link, you not only got manners, you got words! I got to introduce you to my sister!”

  He descended the stairs, Link following. The situation was probably serious. It could be appalling. But Link had been restless for days, now, from a lack of things to interest his normally active brain. He felt himself challenged. It appeared that Sord Three might turn out to be a very interesting place.

  When they reached the open-air, the two pig-like animals had joined the party of waiting unicorns and men. They moved about underfoot with the accustomed air of dogs with a hunting party of men. But they did not wear dogs’ amiable expressions. They looked distinctly peevish.

  “I want somebody to take a message,” said Harl briskly. “It’s worth two beers.”

  A pig-like animal looked at him scornfully. Link heard a voice remarkably resembling that of the invisible conversationalist he’d talked to before these men arrived.

  “This is our ship!” said the voice stridently. “We saw it first!”

  “You didn’t tell us,” said Harl firmly. “And we found it without you. Besides, it belongs to this gentleman. You want two beers?”

  “Tyrant!” snapped the voice. “Robber! Grinding down the poor! Robbing—”

  “Hush up!” sai
d Harl. “Do you take the message or not?”

  A second voice said defiantly:

  “For four beers! It’s worth ten!”

  “All right, four beers it is,” agreed Harl. “The message is not to hang that whiskery fella till we get there. We’ll be right along.”

  The first scornful voice snapped:

  “Who gets the message?”

  “Tell my sister,” said Harl impatiently. “Shoo!”

  The two pig-like animals broke into a gallop together and went streaking over the nearest bill crest. As they went, squabbling voices accused each other, the one because the bargain was for only two beers apiece, and the other for having gotten himself included in the bargain out of all reason. Link stared after them, his jaw dropped open. The voices dwindled, disputing, and ended as the piggish creatures disappeared.

  Link swallowed and blinked. Harl appointed one of his followers to remain in the Glamorgan as caretaker. That left a splay-footed animal with a drooping nose-horn as a mount for Link. Bemused and almost incredulous, he climbed into the saddle on a signal from Harl. The completely improbable cavalcade moved briskly away from the landed spaceship. It was not an indiscretion on Link’s part. A care-taker remained with the ship, and Thistlethwaite was in trouble. Link went to try to get him out. Also, it appeared to be definite that Link had somehow made himself a guest in Harl’s Household—whatever that might be—and etiquette protected him from ordinary peril so long as he did nothing equivalent to offering to pay to have a message delivered, or rather, so long as he did nothing equivalent to offering to pay Harl for having a message delivered. It was approvable to offer to pay small animals like pigs who—

  “My fella back there,” said Harl reassuringly as they mounted a hillock and from its top saw other hillocks stretching away indefinitely, “my fella, he’ll take good care of your ship, Link. I warned him not to touch a thing but just keep uffts out and if any human come by to say you’re guestin’ with me.”

  “Thanks,” said Link. Then he said painfully, “Those small fat animals—”

  “Uffts?” said Harl. “Don’t you have ’em where you come from?”

  “No,” said Link. “We don’t. It seems that… they talk!”

  “Natural,” Harl agreed. “They talk too much, if you ask me. Those two will stop on the way an’ tell all the other uffts all about the message, and about you, an’ everything. But they were on this world when the old-timers came an’ settled’ here. They were the smartest critters on the planet. Plenty smart! But they’re awful proud. They got brains, but they’ve got hoofs instead of hands, so all they can do is talk. They have big gatherin’s and drink beer and make speeches to each other about how superior they are to human bein’s because they ain’t got paws like us.”

  The motion of the splay-footed unicorns was unpleasant. The one Link rode put down each foot separately, and the result was a series of swayings in various directions which had a tendency to make a rider sea-sick. Link struggled with that sensation. Harl appeared to be thinking deeply, and sadly. The unicorns were not hoofed animals so there was no sound of hoofbeats. There was only the creaking of saddle leather and very occasionally the clatter of a spear or some other object against something else.

  “Y’know,” said Harl presently, “I’d like to believe that you comin’ here, Link, is meant, or something. I’ve been getting pretty discouraged, with things seemin’ to get worse all the time. Time was, the old folks say, when uffts was polite and respectful and did what they was told and took thank-you gifts and was glad to’ve done a human a favor. But nowadays they won’t work for anybody without a agreement of just how much beer they’re goin’ to get for doin’ it. And the old folks say there used to be unduplied cloth an’ stuff that was better than we got now. And knives was better, an’ tools was better, and there was lectric and machines and folks lived real comfortable. But lately it’s been gettin’ harder an’ harder to get uffts to bring in greenstuff, an’ they want more an’ more beer for it. I tell you, it ain’t simple, bein’ a Householder these days! You got people to feed an’ clothe, and the women fuss and the men get sour and the uffts set back and laugh, and make speeches to each other about how much smarter they are than us. I tell you, Link, it’s time for something to happen, or things are goin’ to get just so bad we can’t stand them!”

  The cavalcade went on, and Harl’s voice continued. The thing he deplored came out properly marshaled, and it was evident that responsibilities in an imperfect universe had caused him much grief, of which he was conscious.

  Link caught an idea now and then, but most of Harl’s melancholy referred to conditions Harl took as a matter of course and Link knew nothing about. For example, there was the idea that it was disgraceful to pay or be paid for anything that was done, except by uffts. On no other planet Link had heard of was commerce considered disreputable. He knew of none on which work was not supposed to be performed in exchange for wages. And there was, irrelevantly, the matter of Thistlethwaite’s clothing. It was not “duplied.” What was “duplied”? Everywhere, of course, the good old days are praised by those who managed to live through them. But when cloth was duplied it was inferior, and tools were inferior, and there was no more lectric—that would be electricity—and there were no more engines.

  Link almost asked a question, then. The ancestors of Harl and his followers had colonized this planet from space. By spaceship. It was unthinkable that they hadn’t had electricity and engines or motors. And when the way to make things is known and they are wanted, they are made! The way to make them is not forgotten! It simply isn’t! But according to Harl they’d had those things and lost them. Why?

  Harl murmured on, with a sort of resigned unhappiness. The state of things on Sord Three was bad. He hoped Link’s arrival might help, but it didn’t seem really likely. He named ways in which times had formerly been better. He named matters in which deterioration had plainly gone a long way. But he gave no clue to what made them worse, except that everything that was duplied was inferior, and everything was duplied. But what duplying was—

  They passed over the top of a rolling hill. Below them the ground was disturbed. An illimitable number of burrows broke its surface, with piles of dirt and stones as evidence of excavations below ground. An incredible number of pink-skinned, pig-like creatures appeared to live here.

  “This,” said Harl uncomfortably, “this is an ufft town. It’s shortest to get back to the Household if we ride through it. They fuss a lot, but they don’t ever actual do more than yell at humans goin’ through. Bein’ uffts, though, and knowing from those two I sent ahead that you’re a stranger, they may be extra noisy just to show off.”

  Link shrugged.

  “You fellas,” said Harl sternly to his following, “don’t you pay any attention to what they say! Hear me? Ignore ’em!”

  The cavalcade rode down the farther hillside and entered the ufft metropolis. The splay-footed unicorns walked daintily, avoiding the innumerable holes which were exactly large enough to let full-grown uffts pop in and out with great rapidity. Had Link known prairie-dogs, he would have said that it was much like a much-enlarged prairie-dog town. The burrows were arranged absolutely without pattern, here and there and everywhere. Uffts sat in their doorways, so to speak, and regarded the animals and men with scornful disapproval. It seemed to Link that they eyed him with special attention, and not too much of cordiality.

  A voice from somewhere among the burrows snapped:

  “Humans! Huh! And here’s a new one. Pth-th-th-thl!” It was a Bronx cheer. Another voice said icily, “Thieves! Robbers! Humans!” A third voice cried shrilly, “Oppressors! Tyrants! Scoundrels!”

  The six riders, including Link, gazed fixedly at the distance. They let their mounts pick their way. The scornful voices increased their clamor. Uffts—they did look astonishingly like pigs—popped out of burrows practically under the feet of the unicorns and cried out enragedly:

  “That’s right! That’s right! Trea
d on us! Show the stranger! Tread on us!”

  Uffts seemed to boil around the clump of unicorns. They dived out of sight as the large splay feet of the riding-animals neared them, and then popped up immediately behind them with cries of rage, “Tyrants! Oppressors! Stranger, tell the galaxy what you see!” Then other confused shoutings, “Go ahead! Crush us! Are you ashamed to let the stranger see? It’s what you want to do!”

  There was a chorus of yapping ufft voices a little distance away. One of them, squatted upright, waved a fore-paw to give the cadence for choral shouts of, “Men, go home! Men, go home! Men, go home!”

  Harl looked unhappily at Link.

  “They never had manners, Link. But this is worse than I’ve seen before. Some of it’s to make you think bad of us, you bein’ a stranger. I’m right sorry, Link.”

  “Humans seem pretty unpopular,” said Link. “They aren’t afraid of you, though.”

  “I can’t afford to be hard on ’em,” admitted Harl. “I need ’em to bring in greenstuff. They know it. They work when they feel like they want some beer. They get enough beer for a party an’ then they make speeches to each other about how grand they are an’ how stupid us humans are. If I was to try to make ’em act respectful, they’d go get their beer from another Household, an’ we wouldn’t have any greenstuff brought in. An’ they know I know it. So they get plenty fresh!”

  “Yah!” rasped a voice almost underfoot. “Humans! Humans have paws! Humans have hands! Shame! Shame! Shame!”

  The unicorns plodded on, their flaccid upside-down horns drooping and wobbling. They climbed over mounds of dirt and stones, and down to level ground between burrows, and then over other mounds. Their gait was incredibly ungainly. The clamor of ufft voices increased. The nearby tumult was loud enough, but the ufft city stretched for a long way. It seemed that for miles to right and left there were shrilling, pink-skinned uffts galloping on their stubby legs to join in the abuse of the human party.