An experienced horse-trader, bargain-haggler,
and general swapper has a very special talent for
turning two headaches into one aspirin pill....
The rugged little stellar scout ship flared down to
the surface of Kappa
Orionis VII about a mile from the aboriginal village.
The pilot,
Lieutenant Eric Haruhiku, scorched an open field,
but pointed out to
Louis Mayne that he had been careful to disturb neither
woodland nor
shoreline.
“The Kappans are touchy about those, Judge,”
he explained, “They fish a
lot, as you’d guess from all these shallow seas,
and they pick fruit in
the forests; but they don’t farm much.”
“No use provoking trouble,” Mayne approved.
“It’s a long way from
Rigel.”
“It’s a longer way from Sol,” said
the pilot.
“Don’t I know, boy! If it weren’t,
I’d be just another retired space
captain, quietly struggling with my ranch on Rigel
IX. As it is, to get
the grant, I had to remain on call as an arbitrator.”
“Somebody has to settle these things,”
said Haruhiku. “There’s not much
law way out here, except what the Space Force can
apply. Well, if you’ll
excuse me, sir, I’ll have them get out the helicopter
and take us over
to the village.”
“Let me see that last message again, before
you go,” Mayne requested.
The pilot extracted a sheet from his clipboard and
handed it to Mayne as
he left. Mayne studied the text with little pleasure.
Terran Space Force headquarters on Rigel IX wished
to inform him that
the long awaited envoy from Terra to Kappa Orionis
VII not only had
arrived but had departed two days behind Mayne.
It was hoped, the communication continued, that nothing
would interfere
with the desired objective of coming to some friendly
agreement with the
Kappans that would permit Terran use of the planet
as a base for
spaceships. The envoy, of course, was prepared
to offer trade
inducements and various other forms of help to the
semi-civilized
natives. Mayne was requested to lay whatever
groundwork he could.
In my spare time, no doubt, he reflected. I’m
to settle this silly
business any way at all as long as the
natives get their way. But has
anybody told the government about insurance companies?
If it costs money
or a lawsuit, will they back me up?
He felt himself to be in a ridiculous dilemma.
The Kappans were reported
to have seized a Terran spaceship as it landed to
trade. Naturally, the
captain had squawked for help. He claimed he
had crashed; his insurance
company thought otherwise; the Kappans seemed to have
some entirely
different idea in mind. Mayne had been summoned
into action to render a
decision, after the rough and ready system of these
settlements on the
surface of Terra’s sphere of explored space.
Regretfully, he made his way now to the cubbyhole
allowed him on the
cramped scout, where he changed to a more formal tunic
of a bright blue
he hoped would look impressive to native eyes.
By the time he was ready,
the helicopter was waiting. He and Haruhiku entered,
and the crewman at
the controls took off for the scene of the dispute.
Arriving over the village, they hovered a few minutes
while Haruhiku
studied the lay of the land. The lieutenant had
been to this world
before, long enough to pick up some of the language
and customs, so
Mayne was content to follow his advice about landing
a little way off
from a spaceship that towered outside the village.
They came down about a hundred yards away, between
a rutted sort of road
and a long hut covered by a curved, thatched roof.
“They’re expecting us,” said Haruhiku,
gesturing at the group before the
hut.
It consisted of half a dozen humans and several of
the Kappan natives.
The latter, naturally, caught Mayne’s eye first.
The most imposing
individual among them stood about five feet tall.
The planet being of
about the same mass as Terra, the Kappan probably
weighed over two
hundred and fifty pounds. He was a rugged biped
with something saurian
in his ancestry; for his skin was scaled, and bony
plates grew into a
low crown upon his long skull. His arms and legs
were heavy and bowed,
with joints obscured by thick muscles and loose skin.
Mayne was struck
by the fancy that the Kappan’s color, a blend
of brown and olive, was
that of a small dragon who had achieved a good suntan.
A yellow kilt was
his main article of attire, although he wore a few
decorations of
polished bone.
One of the Terrans stepped forward. He wore a
semimilitary uniform.
“I suppose you’re Louis Mayne?”
he asked.
“Right,” answered Mayne. “You
would be Captain Voorhis, of the
Gemsbok?”
“Check. This here is Eemakh. He’s
more or less chief of the village, or
tribe, or whatever you wanna call it.”
Mayne found his gaze sinking into catlike slits of
jet in a pair of huge
orange eyes shaded by massive brow ridges. The
native made some
statement in a clicking language that had a harsh,
choppy rhythm.
“He welcomes you to Kappa,” Haruhiku interpreted.
“He hopes the gods
will not be displeased.”
“What a warm welcome!” commented Mayne.
“Have you been getting along
that well, Captain Voorhis?”
“Just about,” said the spacer. “One
of my boys knows a few words. Rest
of the time, we make signs. I gotta admit they
ain’t been too
unfriendly.”
“But they have seized your ship?”
“You’re damn’ right! That insurance
guy they sent out don’t see it that
way though.”
“Where is this representative of the Belt Insurance
Company?” asked
Mayne.
“Melin? His ship landed over on the other
side of the village, about
half a mile. He oughta be along soon. Must’ve
seen you land.”
Mayne wondered whether it were necessary to await
the arrival of the
insurance adjustor before asking any questions.
To cover his hesitation,
he turned to take his first good look at the hull
of the Gemsbok.
“What do they think they’re doing?”
he demanded, staring.
The Gemsbok was or had been an
ungraceful, thick starship on the
verge of aging into scrap. Towering here between
the village and the
huge, bluish-green leaves of the Kappan forest, she
was in the process
of being transformed into a planet-bound object of
a certain weird
grace.
A framework was being constructed about the hull by
a swarm of natives.
They had reached halfway up the ship, which served
as a central column.
Much of the exterior appeared to be a network of strangely
curved
sections of wood that had been given a high polish.
Mayne suspected the
greenish highlights were reflections of the forest
color.
“Bone,” said Voorhis succinctly.
“They collect it from things they catch
in the sea. Main supports of timber, of course,
built to fit the hull.”
“The fish here grow very large,” put in
Haruhiku. “If you could call
them fish, that is. I once saw them butchering
what looked more like a
dinosaur.”
Mayne realized that the bone framework formed a sort
of curtain wall. At
the lower levels, some of the natives seemed to be
experimenting with a
coating of wet leaves which they were molding to the
wall.
“They’ve soaked them in something they
boil out of fish parts,” his
pilot explained. “Like the village roofs.
When it dries, it’s pretty
hard, even waterproof. The stink never dries
out.”
“But what do they have in their bony little
brains?” asked Mayne. “Just
what is that mess supposed to be?”
“A temple, believe it or not,” answered
Voorhis. “They tell me I set her
down on land sacred to the great god Meeg!”
Mayne looked at Haruhiku.
“Oh, come on, now! I came all the way from ”
He stopped as he noticed
the pilot’s grave expression. “Oh!
That sort of thing could be
serious, I guess.”
He imagined he had seen the chief, Eemakh, come alert
at the mention of
the local god. Mayne sighed. It was going
to be a long day.
He was saved for the time being by a hail from the
direction of the
village. A procession was approaching along the
set of ruts between
Mayne and the ship.
The place of honor appeared to be occupied by a two-wheeled
cart of
crude but massive design. Upon it rode a Kappan
driver, two Kappans with
spears and the look of official guards, and a Terran
with a death-grip
upon the side railing. A brace of truculent beasts
of frighteningly
saurian mien shuffled ponderously along in the loose
harness. From time
to time, one or the other would stumble over a turn
in his rut and emit
a menacing rumble as if he suspected his team mate
of causing the
misstep.
Before and behind this conveyance marched a guard
of honor of Kappan
warriors. The rear contingent kept close to the
cart, but the advance
party had opened a noticeable gap between themselves
and the hulking
team.
The procession halted, the soldier in charge raised
his spear in salute
to Eemakh, and the shaken Terran was assisted to dismount.
He introduced
himself to Mayne as Robert Melin.
“Let’s go over to the hut they made for
us an’ sit down,” suggested
Voorhis.
Melin, a tall, gloomy blond whose civilian suit seemed
a trifle formal
for the surroundings, acceded gratefully. He
mopped the dust from his
long face and watched the cart being turned around.
The procession moved off in the direction of the village,
the advance
guard stepping out especially smartly, and Mayne began
to get his
conference arranged.
He learned that the evicted crew of the Gemsbok
had been living in the
hut nearby. Before it stood a long table with
benches, all evidently
knocked together from recently felled timber.
Melin was given credit for
this by Voorhis, since before the arrival of the insurance
adjuster and
his crew, no power tools had been available to the
men from the Gemsbok.
Mayne took a place at the end of the
table. Some of the Gemsbok’s crew
came out of the hut to watch. Most of the Kappan
warriors attending the chief took up stations between
the table and the ship, in a manner suggesting long
habit. Mayne guessed that attempts had been made
to re-enter the ship.
He put Haruhiku at his right hand
to translate should it be necessary. Melin and
Voorhis sat at his left, their backs to the hut.
To the other side of the table, Eemakh brought two
Kappans who were explained to Mayne as being the tribal
high priest, Igrillik, and Kaynox, who represented
a sort of district overlord.
“I meant to land up by their
city,” Voorhis put in, “but we hit some
bad winds up in the stratosphere. We got knocked
around a bit in the storm, and set down where we could.”
“Well, tell me about the details,”
said Mayne. “I want to get this straight
from the start, if I can. By the way, Lieutenant
Haruhiku, explain to the chief that a special envoy
is on the way, that we want his friendship, and that
he will be dealt with fairly.”
He waited out the exchange of choppy
speech between the pilot and Eemakh.
“He says he is sure he will
be fairly dealt with,” reported Haruhiku.
“I wonder what he meant by that,”
murmured Mayne. “If we make a deal here,
and thereby with his overlord, will that cover enough
territory to be official?”
“As much as you can get together
anywhere on this world, sir.”
Mayne nodded, then turned to Captain Voorhis.
“Now about this so-called crash?” he prompted.
“Well, there was this storm,
like I said. Trouble was we didn’t expect
to hit it and ... well ... somebody took it in his
head to blow some of the fuel tanks for a crash landing.
That’s why I’m not claimin’ anythin’
on the fuel,” he finished, turning to Melin.
“We are perfectly willing to
pay on that item,” replied the insurance man.
“Anyhow,” continued Voorhis,
“I set down here where we saw the open spot,
an’ then of course we were stuck with nothin’
to lift off with. It looked all right. We’d
unload our goods, an’ if the local crowd couldn’t
use them all, why they’d pass the rest on at
a profit to themselves. So we come out to palaver,
an’ then they won’t let us go back in the
ship. We were just lucky my com man had sent
out a landing report when it looked like we piled
up, or the Space Force patrol never woulda heard of
us.”
“Was there any trouble?”
asked Mayne. “Any unnecessary hostility?”
Voorhis considered, rubbing the back
of his head thoughtfully.
“Well ... I suppose, lookin’
at it their way, they coulda been a lot rougher.
A couple of punches got thrown, an’ one of my
boys got a spear busted over his head, but mostly
they acted ... well ... maybe more like cops than
cannibals.”
“Just enforcing the native laws, eh?”
Voorhis did not swallow that quite
so graciously. He did not know or care what the
local laws might be, but he thought it suspicious in
the extreme that he should have plopped down exactly
upon the spot chosen by the natives for a temple.
“So do they have to use my ship
to hang it on?” he finished plaintively.
“The company is in agreement
with you there, captain,” Melin put in.
“You see, Judge, our point is that nothing is
really lost or seriously damaged, neither ship nor
cargo. They are merely being withheld from their
rightful owner, and we believe that puts the responsibility
for recovery upon the Terran government. Captain
Voorhis has our entire sympathy ”
“Yeah!” said Voorhis.
“An’ if I get my head sliced off tryin’
to get at that undamaged cargo, you’ll come
to my funeral! I say it’s a loss!”
“Now, gentlemen!” interrupted
Mayne. “Let me get on with this. Both
of you, I’m sure, realize that I’m not
a lawyer in spite of being a special judge. If
the colonies way out here had enough lawyers to spare,
I certainly wouldn’t be sticking my head into
this. Nevertheless, any decision I make here
will be regarded as legally binding by the government
of Rigel IX, so let us remain level-headed.”
“Very well, Judge,” said
Melin. “Here are the figures on ”
“Please round them off,”
said Mayne. “If I have to listen to a long
list in centicredits, I’ll probably go off to
see what kind of beer they brew here.”
“You wouldn’t like it,”
muttered Voorhis, staring sourly at the village.
“No doubt,” grinned Mayne.
Melin swallowed and returned to an
inner pocket a sheaf of papers he had withdrawn.
“Speaking very loosely,”
he went on, as if hating to do anything loosely, “the
coverage was about as follows: for the Gemsbok
herself, two million; but that was really a nominal
figure accorded as a sort of courtesy. Otherwise,
at her true worth, the authorities would hardly have
permitted Captain Voorhis to take her into space ”
“Get on with it,” urged Mayne, to forestall
any wrangle.
“Er ... yes. Then on the
cargo, the purchase cost of two hundred thousand credits.”
Voorhis visibly flinched and began
to acquire a ruddy hue.
“And, finally, on the fuel load,
the cost price of three hundred thousand. Of
course, Judge, there are detailed clauses as to normal
use of fuel. He was actually insured against
defects, premature explosions, accidental loss, et
cetera.”
Mayne did some addition in his head.
“So your company,” he
said aloud, “is prepared to pay two and a half
million for the loss sustained by Captain Voorhis.
What seems to be wrong with that?”
Both men began to talk but Melin,
struggling less with temper, got the lead.
“Actually,” he said, “we
feel liable for only three hundred thousand.”
Now it will get tough, thought
Mayne. He silently awaited elucidation.
The combined stares of all parties,
including the enigmatic glance of Eemakh, calmed the
spluttering Voorhis. Melin continued.
“In the first place, the true
value of the ship, even if we consider her to be incapacitated which
we do not is only about one hundred and
fifty thousand.”
“She’s worth more than that as scrap!”
bellowed Voorhis.
“No, captain, just about that.
It is exactly how we valued her. Do you have
any idea, Judge, of how old that crock is?”
“Let’s not go into that just yet,”
suggested Mayne.
“As to the fuel,” said
Melin, “I am willing, as a gesture of good will,
to stick my company’s neck out and
mine with it, you may be sure and honor
a full claim.”
“Even though he used about half
the fuel getting here?” asked Mayne.
“We’ll ignore that.
We admit that he is out of fuel, and we want to ”
“You want to give me a moon
and take a star,” said Voorhis.
“Just a minute!” Mayne
held up his hand. “That’s the ship
and the fuel. What about the cargo?”
“Why, as to that, Judge, we
do not admit that it is lost. It is right over
there, easily accessible. We consider it more
the job of the Space Force to restore rightful possession
than it is the responsibility of the company to reimburse
Captain Voorhis for the inflated value he sets upon
it.”
“I begin to see,” murmured
Mayne. “You can’t stick each other,
so you’re out to slip me the bill.”
That aroused a babble of denials.
Mayne eventually made himself heard and demanded to
know how the spacer’s evaluation differed from
Melin’s. Voorhis pulled himself together,
glowering at the insurance man.
“In the first place,”
he growled, “I don’t want his lousy payment
for fuel. I said I’d take the blame for
that, an’ I will. On the ship ... well,
maybe she ain’t worth two million. Maybe
she ain’t been for a few years now ”
Melin made a show of counting on his fingers.
“... But they charged me
premiums by that figure an’ I say they oughta
pay by that figure.”
“But can you prove she’s
a total loss, captain?” asked Mayne.
Voorhis grimaced and spat upon the ground.
“Try to get near her, Judge! You’ll
get proof fast enough!”
“Well ... about the cargo, then?”
“That’s where he’s
gouging me!” exploded Voorhis. “The
idea of using the cost as of loading on Rigel IX!
Hell, you know the margin of profit there is in trading
on these new planets, twenty to one at least.
I figured to lift off with four million worth of ores,
gems, curios, and whatnot.”
“So your point is that the mere
transportation of the goods through space to this
planet increased their value. What about that,
Mr. Melin?”
Melin shifted uncomfortably on his
bench. Mayne would have liked to change his own
position, but feared splinters.
“There is an element of truth
in that,” admitted Melin. “Still,
it would be rash to expect such a return every time
a tramp spaceship lands to swap with some aboriginal
easy marks.”
“I suppose,” said Mayne,
“that our orange-eyed friends speak no Terran?”
“I hope not!” exclaimed Voorhis.
“Well, anyway,” Melin
said after a startled pause, “how can we be
expected to pay off on hopes? He wants the paper
figure for the ship; but he refuses the paper figure
for the cargo.”
Mayne shrugged. He turned to Haruhiku.
“If Captain Voorhis and Mr.
Melin don’t mind, lieutenant, I’d like
to get the chief’s view of all this.”
“Hah!” grunted Voorhis, clapping both
hands to his head.
Melin contented himself with rolling his eyes skyward.
With Haruhiku translating, Mayne began
to get acquainted with the Kappans. The visitor
from the neighboring city chose mostly to listen attentively,
but Igrillik, the priest, occasionally leaned over
to whisper sibilantly into Eemakh’s recessed
ear. Mayne fancied he saw a resemblance between
the two, despite Igrillik’s professional trappings a
long robe of rough material that had been dyed in stripes
and figures of several crude colors, and a tall cap
to which were attached a number of pairs of membraneous
wings.
The first thing that Mayne learned
was that the Gemsbok was not a spaceship; it
was a symbol, a sign sent to the Kappans by the great
god Meeg.
“And why did he send it?” asked Mayne.
He had sent it as a sign that he was
impatient with his children. They had vowed him
a temple, they had set aside the necessary land, and
yet they had not begun the work.
“Is that why they’re all over there, slaving
away so feverishly?”
It was indeed the reason. After
all, Meeg was the god of the inner moon, the one that
passed so speedily across the sky. If he could
guide the strangers’ ship directly to his own
plot of ground, he might just as easily have caused
it to land in the center of the village. They
had seen the flames that attended the landing.
Could the honored chief from the stars blame them
for heeding the warning?
“I see their point,” muttered
Mayne resignedly. “Well, maybe we can talk
sense about the cargo. Tell them that there is
much in the holds that would make their lives richer.
Tools, gems, fine cloth give them the story,
lieutenant.”
This time, Eemakh conferred with the
high priest. It developed that the cargo was
a sacred gift to be used or not as the god Meeg might
subsequently direct. The chief meant no insult.
The Kappans realized that Voorhis and his crew were
no demons, but starmen such as had often brought valuable
goods to trade. The Kappans had not sought to
harm or sacrifice them, had they? This was because
they were both welcome as visitors and respected as
instruments of Meeg.
Eemakh wished to be fair. The
starmen might think they had lost by the divine mission.
Very well they would be granted land, good
land with forest for hunting and shoreline for fishing.
But go near the temple they should not!
“Could I get in to inspect the cargo?”
asked Mayne.
Haruhiku took this up with the Kappans, who softened
but did not yield.
“The best I can get, Judge,”
said the pilot, “is that they wish it were possible
but only those who serve the purposes of Meeg may enter.”
“They would look at it
that way,” sighed Mayne. “Let’s
leave it at that, until we can think this over some
more. It’s time for a lunch break anyway.”
He and Haruhiku were flown back to
the scout ship. Mayne brooded silently most of
the way. Voorhis thought he was entitled to about
six million credits for ship and cargo; Melin thought
half a million for the ship and fuel would be stretching
it. Mayne foresaw that he would have to knock
heads.
The two of them lunched in the pilot’s
cabin, with hardly room to drop a spoon. Except
for companionship, Mayne would as soon have eaten standing
in the galley.
He considered the vast area of the
planet’s land surface. Would it be wiser
for the envoy to land elsewhere? What sort of
ties were there between tribes?
“Loose,” the pilot told
him. “Still, word gets around, with no great
mountain or ocean barriers. They’ve split
into groups, but there is a lot of contact.”
“So if the Space Force should
seize the Gemsbok, they’ll all hear about
it?”
“Within a few weeks, sir.
That kind of news has wings on any world. I think
we could take her for you, but we might do some damage.
The size of a scout crew doesn’t lend itself
to hand-to-hand brawls.”
“And if you sling a couple of
torpedoes at the Kappan village, you’ll probably
wipe it out,” said Mayne thoughtfully. “Give
the story a month to spread, and no Terran would be
trusted anywhere on the planet. Hm-m-m ... hardly
practical!”
“There would also be a chance of damaging the
Gemsbok.”
“Actually, Eric, I’d hardly
care if you blew her into orbit, with Voorhis and
Melin riding the fins! But I’m supposed
to spread sweetness and light around here not
scraps and parts of spaceships.”
He gnawed moodily upon a knuckle,
but saw no way to escape putting up some government
money. Soaking the company would just make them
appeal instead of Voorhis.
“This Meeg,” he said to
change the subject. “How important is he?”
Haruhiku considered a moment before replying.
“They have a whole mess of gods,
like most primitive societies. Meeg is pretty
important. I think he has a special significance
to this tribe ... you know, like some ancient Terran
cities has a special patron.”
“He’s the god of that little moon?”
Mayne asked.
“Oh, more than that, I think.
Really the god of speed, a message bearer for the
other divinities. There always seems to be one
in every primitive mythology.”
“Yes,” murmured Mayne.
“Let’s see ... one parallel would be the
ancient Terran Hermes, wouldn’t it?”
“Something like that,”
agreed Haruhiku. “I’m a little vague
on the subject, sir. At least, he isn’t
one of the bloodthirsty ones.”
“That helps,” sighed Mayne, “but
not enough.”
He got a message blank from the pilot.
With some labor, he composed a request to Terran headquarters
on Rigel IX for authorization to spend two million
credits on good-will preparations for the Terran-Kappan
treaty conference.
It almost sounds diplomatic,
he told himself before having the message sent.
The waiting period that followed was
more to be blamed upon headquarters pussyfooting than
upon the subspace transmission. When an answer
finally came, it required a further exchange of messages.
Mayne’s last communique might
have been boiled down to, “But I need
it!”
The last reply granted provisional
permission to spend the sum mentioned; but gleaming
between the lines like the sweep of a revolving beacon
was a strong intimation that Mayne had better not hope
to charge the item to “good will.”
The budget just was not made that way, the hint concluded.
“It’s due to get dark
soon, isn’t it?” he asked Haruhiku, crumpling
the final message into a side pocket. “I
don’t believe I’ll resume the talks till
morning. Maybe my head will function again by
then.”
In the morning, one of the scout’s
crew again took the pilot and Mayne to the meeting
by helicopter. Mayne spent part of the trip mulling
over a message Haruhiku had received. The spaceship
Diamond Belt could be expected to arrive in
orbit about the planet later the same day, bearing
special envoy J. P. McDonald. The captain, having
been informed of Haruhiku’s presence, requested
landing advice.
“I told him what I know,”
said the pilot. “We can give him a beam
down, of course, unless you think we should send him
somewhere else.”
“Well ... let’s see how
this goes,” said Mayne. “They seem
to be waiting for us down there.”
They landed to find Voorhis, Melin,
and the native officialdom gathered at the hut facing
the new “temple.” After exchanging
greetings, they sat down at the table as they had
the day before.
“All right, gentlemen,”
said Mayne to the two Terrans. “You win.
The government is going to have to put something in
the pot. I want to make it as little as possible,
so let us have no more nonsense about the true value
of ship or cargo as they stand.”
They looked startled at his tone.
Mayne went on before they could recover.
“The object I have in mind,
if it seems at all possible, is to put Captain Voorhis
back in business without costing Mr. Melin his job.
Now, let’s put our heads together on that problem
and worry about justifying ourselves later.”
The most difficult part was to convince
Voorhis to surrender his dream of fantastic profits;
but sometime before Mayne got hoarse, the captain
was made to see that he could not have his cake and
eat it, too.
Melin agreed that he might pay the
paper value of the Gemsbok if he could pay
likewise for the cargo, in which case he would admit
a loss. After all, a spaceship anchored by a
temple might reasonably be termed unspaceworthy.
He would take over the cargo and cut his losses by
allowing the government to buy it at two million.
“You wanna come with me next
trip?” invited Voorhis when he heard this.
“If that’s how you cut loose, we’ll
make a fortune!”
“Well, there it is,” said
Mayne, straightening up to ease his aching back.
He must have been leaning tensely over the table longer
than he had thought. “The captain gets
two and a half million, Mr. Melin gets off with paying
only half a million, and you’ve stuck me for
the rest.”
“Congratulations, Judge!”
said Melin. “You now own a ship and cargo
which I presume you will present to the Kappans.”
“How can he?” demanded
Voorhis. “They figure they own it already.”
“We’ll worry about that later,”
said Mayne.
“You will!” Voorhis
guffawed. “I hope you get some credit
out of it.”
Haruhiku interrupted to inform Mayne
that the Kappans, who had been interested if bewildered
listeners, had invited the Terrans to a small feast.
“I translated enough to let
them understand there would be no attempt to disturb
their temple building,” he explained. “They
now feel they owe us hospitality.”
“Good, that’s something,” said Mayne.
“I’ll tell you what else
will be something,” grunted Voorhis. “The
food!”
The assemblage repaired to the Kappan
village. The Terrans though it took
some doing survived the feast.
Mayne thought it best not to inquire
into the nature of the dishes served. Eemakh
was evidently determined to display his village’s
finest hospitality, so the Terrans even tried the
Kappan beer. Mayne absorbed enough to get used
to it.
Or did it absorb me? he wondered.
Igrillik’s beginning to look almost human!
Eventually, carts were brought, and
they rode bumpily out to admire progress made on the
temple. A fresh breeze helped Mayne to remember
that it was now late afternoon and he had yet to settle
one matter with Eemakh.
When they arrived at the site, crewmen
from the Gemsbok saw fit to take Voorhis in
charge and carry him into their hut. Mayne sank
down at the table outside, watching Melin grope to
a place beside him. He noticed that Haruhiku’s
helicopter pilot handed him a message as soon as the
lieutenant alighted.
“That will be from the Diamond Belt,”
Mayne guessed.
He eyed Melin with some amusement.
The insurance man stared very quietly at the board
beneath his elbows. His complexion held a tint
of green. Even Eemakh, plodding ponderously up,
lowered himself to a bench with a sigh. The high
priest seemed less affected by the celebration, and
Mayne was proud when Haruhiku walked over with his
normal bland alertness.
“They’re getting near?” he asked.
“Doing braking circles,”
reported the pilot. “I sent an order for
the scout to give them a beam. There may still
be time to send them somewhere else ”
“One more try here first,”
Mayne decided. “Tell Eemakh we want to
straighten out some confusion about Meeg and the cargo.”
Haruhiku permitted himself a small
shrug and translated. Eemakh aroused himself
to a show of interest, while Igrillik turned a suspicious
orange stare upon Mayne. The latter strove to
frame in his mind an argument that would strike them
as logical.
“Tell him,” he instructed,
“that we believe this Meeg was known on Terra,
but by another name. Then describe the mythical
Hermes and see what he says.”
Haruhiku began a conversation that
lasted several minutes. Igrillik, as an authority,
obviously felt moved to deliver a lengthy opinion.
At last, the pilot turned to Mayne.
“They say we are to be congratulated,”
he reported.
“Is that all?”
“Well, they do seem a bit more
friendly. I was going to try drawing a picture
of that famous statue, with the winged heels and hat,
but it would never match their own conception.
Igrillik asks if you claim belief in Meeg.”
“Avoid that,” said Mayne. “Now do
they know about ship communications?”
“They are aware that it is done,”
said Haruhiku. “After all, they just saw
me send a message to the scout over the helicopter
screen.”
“Good! Point out to them that the Gemsbok
also has such equipment.”
Haruhiku engaged in another long talk.
The Kappans began to show signs of uneasiness at the
end. They remained silent.
“And that therefore,”
added Mayne, “the Terran who served this machine
should rank in their eyes as a servant of Meeg just
as much as Igrillik. The cargo in the ship was
no more his than a message belongs to the messenger
bearing it.”
The pilot put this into Kappan, with gestures.
“And furthermore,” said
Mayne, before it could be suggested that the owner
might be Meeg, “what I have arranged here with
Melin and Voorhis is that the cargo now belongs to
all of the Terran people.”
Eemakh began to scowl, an impressive
contortion on a broad, olive Kappan visage. Mayne
hurried on.
“This being the case, the Kappans
have absolutely no right to deny us the privilege
of contributing all these goods to the glory of their
temple!”
“Oh, boy!” grunted Haruhiku.
He rattled off the translation.
Mayne watched it hit home. Igrillik
leaned over to peer at him unbelievingly. Eemakh
seemed to have difficulty in focusing his glowing
eyes on the Terran.
There were, of course, requests for
clarification. Mayne left the repetitions to
the pilot.
In the end, Eemakh arose and embraced
him, a startling action that left Mayne feeling introspectively
of his ribs. Igrillik called out something to
the bodyguard attending the chief, causing Mayne to
repress a shudder at the flashing display of big Kappan
teeth. He assumed that a smile was a humanoid
constant.
Haruhiku’s pilot approached with a new message.
“Now they have to land near
here, in half an hour or less,” said the spacer.
“There’s just one more
thing,” Mayne told him. “Voorhis is
satisfied, Melin look, he’s gone
to sleep on the table! is relieved, the
Kappans are friendly, and J. P. McDonald will be happy
when he lands. Now I have to get myself off the
hook for two million!”
He turned to the Gemsbok crewmen
loitering before the hut.
“Who was the communications man?” he demanded.
A lean, freckled youth with a big
nose admitted to the distinction. Mayne draped
an arm about his shoulders and told him he was back
in business.
“Say to them,” he instructed
Haruhiku, “that if they are to learn how to
use the equipment Meeg has provided for their temple,
they must not delay one minute in taking our friend
here into the ship ... uh ... make that ‘temple.’
He will show them how a spaceship is called down from
the skies.”
Haruhiku gave him a straight-faced
glance that was a masked guffaw. He translated,
and orders began to be shouted back and forth among
the Kappans, all the way to the top-most level of
the construction. The lieutenant called his pilot.
“I’ll have him flash the
scout an order to monitor the Gemsbok and transfer
landing control as soon as they hear her on the air,”
he explained.
Mayne nodded. He clutched the
arm of the Gemsbok operator, who was being
urged away by Igrillik and a group of warrior escorts.
“Just one thing, son,”
he shouted over the babble. “Forget about
the ship’s call sign. You go on the air
calling yourself Kappa Orionis Central Control.”
“Kappa Orionis Central...?”
repeated the youth distrustfully.
“You’ve got it,”
said Mayne, and shoved him on his way. He turned
to Haruhiku. “The last thing to do is to
send the helicopter for some paint. I don’t
care if it isn’t dry when the Diamond
Belt touches down I want a sign over
the door of this hut!”
“A sign?”
“Make it read ‘Spaceport
Number 1.’ Two million is cheap enough for
buying a spaceport already in operation. There
won’t be any trouble, since the Kappans promised
the land.”
Everyone seemed to be running somewhere.
Mayne wiped his face with a handkerchief and sat down
beside Melin, who looked comfortable enough with his
head on the table.
From inside the hut, Mayne could hear
snores that must have Voorhis as a source; the rest
of the Gemsbok crewmen had followed the crowd
to the control tower that was also a temple.
After a while, Haruhiku returned and sat down across
from Melin.
“Magnificent, Judge!”
he said. “We might even get away with it.”
“Of course we will,” said
Mayne, gazing at Melin and listening to Voorhis.
“After all, Hermes was the god of thieves, too!”