The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (16 page)

Kubanan said dryly: “I sometimes think Lady Zerdai shows an unbecoming lack of pride in her Order, young though she be. Now about this lottery: will you see to having the certificates printed?”

“Certainly,” said Borel. “So you do have a printing press here?”

“Yes; from the Earthmen we got it. We’d have preferred a few Earthly weapons to smite our enemies; but no, all they’ll let us have is this device, which bodes ill for our social order. Should the commoners learn reading, who knows what mad ideas this ill-starred machine may spread among them?”

Borel turned on the charm, thankful that supper consisted of some of the more palatable Krishnan dishes. On this planet you were liable to have something like a giant cockroach set before you as a treat. Afterwards all three lit cigars and talked while sipping a liqueur.

Kubanan continued: “Sir Felix, you’re old enough in the ways of the world to know that a man’s pretext is often other than his true reason. Your Earthmen tell me they hide their sciences from us because our culture is yet too immature—by which they mean our gladiatorial shows, our trials by combat, our warring national sovereignties, our social inequalities, and the like. Now, I say not that they’re altogether wrong—I for one should be glad had they never introduced this accursed printing press. But the question I’d ask you is: What’s their real reason?”

Borel wrinkled his forehead in the effort of composing a suitable reply. Being an adventurer and no intellectual, he’d never troubled his head much about such abstract questions. At last, he said: “Perhaps they’re afraid the Krishnans, with their warlike traditions, would learn to make spaceships and attack their neighboring planets.”

“A fantastic idea,” said Kubanan. “ ’Tis not so long since there was a tremendous uproar over the question of whether the planets were inhabited. The churches had been assuring us that the planets were the very gods, and crucifying heretics who said otherwise. No wonder we hailed as gods the first beings from Earth and the other planets of your sun!”

Borel murmured a polite assent, privately thinking that the first expedition to this system ought, if they had any sense, to have been satisfied with being gods and not go disillusioning the Krishnans. That’s what came of letting a bunch of sappy do-gooders . . .

Kubanan was going on: “Our problem is much more immediate. We’re hemmed and beset by enemies. Across the Pichidé lies Gozashtand, whose ruler has been taking an unfriendly line of late; and Majbur City is a veritable hotbed of plots and stratagems. If a way could be found to get us—let’s say—one gun, which our clever smiths could copy, there’s nothing the Order would not do . . .”

So, thought Borel, that’s why the old boy is so hospitable to a mere stranger. He said: “I see your point, excellency. You know the risks, don’t you?”

“The greater the risk, the greater the reward.”

“True, but it would require most careful thought. I’ll let you know when I’ve had time to think.”

“I understand.” Kubanan rose, and to Borel’s surprise said: “I leave you now; Kuri will think I’ve forgotten her utterly. You’ll stay the night, of course?”

“Why, I—thank you, your excellency. I’ll have to send a note out to my man.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll send you a page. Meanwhile, the Lady Zerdai shall keep you company, or if you’ve a mind to read there are ample books on the shelves. Take the second room on the left.”

Borel murmured his thanks and the treasurer departed, his furred robe floating behind him. Then, having no interest whatever in Kubanan’s library, he sat down near Zerdai.

Eyes aglow, Zerdai said: “Now that we need talk finance no more, tell me of the Earth. How live you? I mean, what’s your system of personal relationships? Have you homes and families like the commoners, or all in common as we Guardians do?”

As Borel explained, the girl sighed. With a far-away look she said: “Could I but go thither! I can imagine nought more romantic than to be an Earthly housewife with a home and a man and children of my own! And a telephone!”

Borel reflected that some Earthly housewives sang a different tune, but said gently: “Couldn’t you resign from the Order?”

“In theory, yes—but ’tis hardly ever done. ’Twould be like stepping into another world, and what sort of welcome would the commoners give? Would they not resent what they’d call one’s airs? And to have to face the scorn of all Guardians . . . No, it would not do. Could one escape this world entire, as by journeying to Earth . . .”

“Maybe that could be arranged too,” said Borel cautiously. While he was willing to promise her anything to enlist her cooperation and then ditch her, he didn’t want to get involved in more schemes at once than he could handle.

“Really?” she said, glowing at him. “There’s nought I wouldn’t do . . .”

Borel thought, they all say there’s nothing they wouldn’t do if I’ll only get them what they want. He said: “I may need help on some of my projects here. Can I count on your assistance?”

“With all my heart!”

“Good. I’ll see that you don’t regret it. We’d make a wonderful team, don’t you think? With your beauty and my experience there’s nothing we couldn’t get away with. Can’t you see us cutting a swath through the galaxy?”

She leaned toward him, breathing hard. “You’re wonderful!”

He smiled. “Not really. You are.”

“No, you.”

“No, you. You’ve got beauty, brains, nerve—Oh well, I’ll have plenty of chance to tell you in the future. When I get this lottery organized.”

“Oh.” This seemed to bring her back to Krishna again. She glanced at the time-candle and put out her cigar, saying: “Great stars, I had no idea the hour was so late! I must go to bed, Sir Felix the Red. Will you escort me to my room?”

###

At breakfast Sir Kubanan said: “Thanks to the stars the Grand Council meets this forenoon. I’ll bring up your lottery suggestion, and if they approve we can start work on it today. Why spend you not the morning laying your plans?”

“A splendid idea, excellency,” said Borel, and went to work, after breakfast on the design of lottery tickets and advertising posters. Zerdai hung around, asking if she couldn’t help, trying to cuddle up beside him and getting in the way of his pen arm, all the time looking at him with such open adoration that even he, normally as embarrassable as a rhinoceros, squirmed a little under her gaze.

However, he put up with it in a good cause, to wit: the cause of making a killing for Felix Etienne Borel.

By the middle of the day Kubanan was back jubilant. “They approved! At first Grand Master Juvain boggled a little, but I talked him round. He liked not letting one not of our Order so deep into our affairs, saying, ‘how can there be a secret Order if all its secrets be known?’ But I bridled him. How goes the plan?”

Borel showed him the layouts. The treasurer said: “Wonderful! Wonderful! Carry on, my boy, and come to me for aught you need.”

“I will. This afternoon I’ll arrange for printing this stuff. Then we’ll need a booth. How about setting it up at the lower end of that little street up to the gate of the citadel? And I’ll have to train a couple of men as ticket sellers, and some more to guard the money.”

“All shall be done. Harken, why move you not hither from your present lodgings? I have ample room, and ’twould save time as well as augment comfort, thus slaying two unhas with one bolt.”

“Do come,” sighed Zerdai.

“Okay. Where can I stable my aya and quarter my servant?”

Kubanan told him. The afternoon he spent making arrangements for printing. Since Mishé had but two printers, each with one little hand press, the job would not be finished for at least twenty days.

He reported this to Kubanan at supper, adding: “Will you give me a draft on the treasury of the Order for fifteen hundred karda to cover the initial costs?” (This was more than fifty percent over the prices the printers had quoted, but Kubanan assented without question.)

“And now,” continued Borel, “let’s take up the other matter. If Zerdai’s your confidential secretary, I don’t suppose you mind discussing it in front of her.”

“Not at all. You’ve found a way to get around the technological blockade?”

“Well—yes and no. I can assure you it’ll do no good for me to go to Novorecife and try to smuggle out a gun or plans for one. They have a machine that looks right through you, and they make you stand in front of it before letting you out.”

“Have they no regard for privacy?”

“Not in this matter. Besides, even if one did succeed, they’d send an agent to bring one back dead or alive.”

“Of those agents I’ve heard,” said Kubanan with a slight shudder.

“Moreover I’m no engineer—a baseborn trade—so I can’t carry a set of plans in my head for your people to work from. Guns are too complicated for that.”

“What then?”

“I think the only way is to have something they want so badly they’ll ease up on the blockade in return for it.”

“Yes, but what have we? There’s little of ours that they covet. Even gold, they say, is much too heavy to haul billions of miles to Earth with profit, and almost everything we make, they can make more cheaply at home once they know how. I know; I’ve discussed it with the Viagens folk at Novorecife. Knight though I be, my office requires that I interest myself in such base commercial matters.”

Borel drew on his cigar and remarked: “Earthmen are an inventive lot, and they’ll continue thinking up new things for a long time to come.”

Kubanan shuddered. “A horrid place must this Earth of yours be. No stability.”

“So, if we had an invention far ahead of their latest stuff, they might want the secret badly enough to make a deal. See?”

“How can we? We’re not inventive here. No gentleman would lower himself by tinkering with machines while the common people lack the wit.”

Borel smiled. “Suppose
I
had such a secret?”

“That would be different. What is it?”

“It’s an idea that was confided to me by a dying old man. Although the Earthmen had scorned him and said his device was against the laws of nature, it worked. I know because he showed me a model.”

“But what
is
it?” cried Kubanan.

“It would not only be of vast value to the Earthmen, but also would make Mikardand preeminent among the nations of Krishna.”

“Torture us not, Sir Felix!” pleaded Zerdai.

“It’s a perpetual motion machine.”

Kubanan asked: “What’s that?”

“A machine that runs forever, or at least until it wears out.”

Kubanan frowned and twitched his antennae. “Not sure am I that I understand you. We have water-wheels for operating grain mills which run until they wear out.”

“Not quite what I mean.” Borel concentrated on putting a scientific concept into words, a hard thing to do because he neither knew nor cared much about such matters. “I mean, this machine will give out more power than is put into it.”

“Wherein lies the advantage of that?”

“Why, Earthmen prize power above all things. Power runs their spaceships and motor vehicles, their communications equipment and factories. Power lights their homes and milks their cows . . . I forget, you don’t know about cows. And where do they get their power? From coal, uranium, and things like that. Minerals. They get some from the sun and the tides, but not enough, and they worry about exhaustion of their minerals. Now, my device takes power from the force of gravity, which is the very fundamental quality of matter.” He was striding up and down in his eagerness. “Sooner or later, Krishna is bound to have a scientific revolution like that of Earth. Neither you nor the Viagens Interplanetarias can hold it off forever. And when—”

“I hope I live not to see it,” said Kubanan.

“When it comes, don’t you want Mikardand to lead the planet? Of course! No need to give up your social system. In fact, if we organize the thing right, it’ll not only secure the rule of the Order in Mikardand, but extend the Order’s influence over all Krishna!”

Kubanan was beginning to catch a little of Borel’s fire. “How propose you to do that?”

“Ever heard of a corporation?”

“Let me think—is that not some vulgar scheme Earthmen use in trade and manufacture?”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. There’s no limit to what you can do with a corporation. The Viagens is a corporation, though all its stock is owned by governments . . .” Borel plunged into corporation finance, not neglecting to say: “Of course, the promoter of a corporation gets fifty-one percent of the stock in consideration of his services.”

“Who would the promoter be in our case?”

“I, naturally. We can form this corporation to finance the machine. The initial financing can come from the Order itself, and later the members can either hold—”

“Wait, wait. How can the members buy stock when they own no money of their own?”

“Unh. That’s a tough one. I guess the treasury’ll have to keep the stock; it can either draw profits from the lease of the machines, or sell the stock at an enormous profit—”

“Sir Felix,” said Kubanan, “you make my head to spin. No more, lest my head split like a melon on the chopping- block. Enticing though your scheme be, there is one immovable obstacle.”

“Yes?”

“The Grand Master and the other officers would never permit—you’ll not take offense?—would never permit an outsider such yourself to acquire such power over the Order. ’Twas all I could do to put over your lottery scheme, and this would be one thing too many, like a second nose on your face.”

“All right, think it over,” said Borel. “Now suppose you tell me about the Order of Qarar.”

Kubanan obliged with an account of the heroic deeds of Qarar, the legendary founder of the Order who had slain assorted giants and monsters. As he talked, Borel reflected on his position. He doubted if the Qararuma would want to take in a being from another planet like himself, and even if they did, the club rules against private property would handicap his style.

He asked: “How do Mikardanders become members? By being—uh—hatched in the official incubator?”

“Not always. Each child from the incubator is tested at various times during its growth. If it fail any test, ’tis let out for adoption by some good commoner family. On the other hand, when membership falls low, we watch the children of commoners and any that show exceptional qualities are admitted to training as wards of the Order.”