“On his trail. I was close to him here, but then he misdirected me into seeking him on Mandracore.”
Finch said, “I should hope you were misdirected. I have reason to know that he went to Duden.”
Kuukkinen gave his friend a look of suspicion. “Phil, why should you volunteer useful information?”
Finch clapped him on the back. “The fewer points Villiers makes, the happier I will be. If you can knock him out altogether, I say good for you. To be frank, I seed him number two.”
“After whom?”
“After myself, of course. Since I see him as more troublesome than you, I’ll give you whatever information I can.”
“You’re too kind.”
“In any case, I was sure you knew.”
“’Knew what?”
“That Villiers had gone to Duden.”
“No. Why did you think I did?”
“Well,” said Finch. “Guillaume here and I were staying with a delightful man, Lord Broccoli. Not at all the sort you would expect to find in a corner like this. Marvelous. Villiers was a guest previous to our time. In fact, I encountered him as I was arriving on Shiawassee. While we were staying with Lord Broccoli, his robot butler was stripped to pieces by a mysterious figure in black searching for Villiers. I assumed it was you.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
“To tell the truth, Elmo, it does seem overbrutal, especially since all you had to do was ask.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“They’re having trouble reassembling the butler. So much force. And they don’t make them like that anymore.”
“I say it wasn’t me.”
Guillaume said, “I wonder who it could have been?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Kuukkinen said.
* * *
Well, we know who it could have been. And, as it happened, at that moment Solomon “Biff” Dreznik himself was standing in front of an In-Flight Insurance machine some seventy-five feet distant. He was involved in conversation with a fat man.
“After Adipietro the fleet returned to Llandaff,” the fat man said. “Now, of course, the first thing you would think we’d do is celebrate. It was a tremendous victory, after all, and we hadn’t touched at any port in four months.”
“Your name, sir,” Dreznik said.
“Pencisely. Pyotr Pencisely.”
“How do you spell that?”
“P-e-n-c-i-s-e-l-y. But, no sir, that isn’t what happened. No celebration. We sat like dead men, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“Address.”
“Sector Six, Mooretown, Luvashe. I mean to say, we were drained. We didn’t want women. We didn’t want fun. We didn’t want to dance. We didn’t want to sing. Drinking, smoking, and sitting. That’s all we were good for. Llandaff couldn’t believe it, and after all this time, I’m not sure I do. What do you want my name and address for? What are you writing?”
Dreznik pressed the RECORD button on the machine and then pulled free his own copy. “There we are,” he said.
“You just wrote insurance on me.”
“Of course, my dear Pencisely. It’s my hobby. Some bet in the casino, some at the track. I bet in the spaceport.”
“Have you ever won?”
“Rarely. Now come along, sir.”
Pencisely hesitated.
“If it will make you rest more easily, feel free to write insurance on me. The machine waits.”
Pencisely looked at the machine, and then with an expression of distaste, said, “No. I don’t think so.”
“Then come along.”
“Where?”
“Oh, you mistake me, sir. I’m interested in hearing further of Adipietro. Survivors of the battle are so few. Besides, I like to stand host to those whose health I wager upon. All the myriad facilities of Shiawassee Spaceport lie open. Your pleasure, sir.”
“Well, I guess so.”
Dreznik led the way through the halls until they came to the rental rooms. He inserted money at the first unoccupied room, and the door opened.
“We’ll request our service here,”
Pencisely preceded Dreznik within the room. Dreznik allowed the door to close and then struck Pencisely with the edge of his hand. The fat man puddled and Dreznik heaved him onto the bed.
The ordinary man may act confidently, but the ordinary man does not act with confidence. Only the seldom man, like Solomon “Biff” Dreznik, will know his mind so well.
Purring, he laid out his tools, calculated doses against body weight, eye taking professional pleasure in the accurate estimate of poundage. His body was cold, shot with icy thrills. Control, control, control. Exact motions—hand obeying mind and eye with precise economy. Angles, and iron, ice, blood, and sharp edges. Hands, trembling with power, held the injections. One would kill Pencisely in twelve hours. The other would mask the cause of death. He turned, and found Pencisely dead.
Dreznik held Pencisely’s limp arm in his hands and stared at it. Abruptly he raised the arm, opened his mouth, and bit. I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that Dreznik was some kind of anthropophagous necrophiliac pervert. He simply expressed anger and frustration in a direct manner. He did lick his lips when he finished biting, however, so maybe he was a little funny.
He looked at his left hand—the bad one, the naughty disobedient one. He slapped it sharply.
Then he rose and put all his tools away and left the room without a backward glance, crumpling the insurance form, mind growling. As the door closed behind him, announcement was made of his flight for Pewamo. Excellent timing. Bad hand. Bad bad hand.
Pity Dreznik. In his entire life he had never said “I love you” to anyone. Still, that was an awful way to treat a veteran of Adipietro.
* * *
“Duden,” insisted Finch.
“No,” said Kuukkinen. “Pewamo. It’s closer, and that’s where I believe him to be.”
“I’ll lay odds that it’s Duden.”
“Name the odds.”
“Seven to five.”
“Done. Guillaume, you’re the witness. Seven royals against five.”
Guillaume said, “I can see Finch wagering, but not you, Mr. Kuukkinen. After all, Finch, having run me down, has money to spare. But aren’t you taking Villiers over-lightly?”
“No, sir,” said Kuukkinen. “I have great respect for him. I merely believe him to be on Pewamo. Phil’s wager will be excellent consolation for me should Villiers prove too much, and since I would seed Villiers first and Phil fourth, that he might well be. And now, let me suggest that the two of you join me on my jaunt to Pewamo. I understand the planet offers resorts. After Villiers is found, we can all have a holiday on Phil’s money.”
“If Villiers is found.”
Finch and Guillaume were more than ready to join Kuukkinen. Things had been slow on Shiawassee since Morris the robot had suffered his inquisition and Broccoli’s household been thrown into disorder. They were, in fact, thinking of nothing more lively than wending their way back to Yuten. This struck them as a happy substitute.
When the ship for Pewamo was announced, they all boarded the orange transport car and rolled colorfully away from the Port House.
Finch said, “I’m going to enjoy having the chance to observe your technique, Elmo.”
“I’m sure I will acquit myself.”
“But how well?”
“Well enough. In any case, I entered for fun, not for profit.”
“I entered for profit.”
Guillaume said. “I entered for fun, and had little. I’m enjoying myself tremendously now that I’m no longer involved.”
They entered the ship talking and joking, and found a seat complex to their liking. Finch sat, looking suddenly sobered.
“What’s amiss, Mr. Finch?” Guillaume asked.
In lowered tone, Finch said, “I fear I may owe you seven royals, Kuukkinen. Avoid appearing to look. There. The man in black.”
“I see him, but I fail to und
erstand.”
“That’s Solomon ‘Biff’ Dreznik.”
“I’m prepared to believe you,” Kuukkinen said, “but the name is unfamiliar to me.”
“Then you know Villiers less well than I thought. Dreznik is an assassin. He was killed three years ago in an attempt on Villiers’ life. I’ll wager he’s the man in black who opened Morris, and he’s been to Duden and back.”
“No wager,” said Kuukkinen.
“What should we do?” Guillaume said.
10
The human animal’s most distinguishing characteristic is his need to manipulate objects. He has to do it. He can’t help himself.
Given this need, men react to it in three ways:
Some justify their tinkering with the notion of progress. Manipulations become the rational attempt to reach the ends of more and larger, bigger and better. There are many men of this sort in the service of the Nashuite Empire. They are happy or not as they succeed or fail, and ultimately they are all unhappy.
Some others see that more and larger, bigger and better are not ends at all, but mere vague points on an infinite line to nowhere. These men are unhappy, too, because they need reasons for what their hands choose to do, and without the notion of progress, they have none.
The final group? A small one. These are the men who accept the fact that manipulation is what human beings do, and happily manipulate away.
Take a string about seven feet long and tie the ends together with a neat small knot. Hang the string over the thumb and little finger of each hand. Hook your right forefinger over the left hand palm string. Draw the string away, twisting it several times by rotating the index finger. With the left index finger pick up from below the string crossing the right palm at the base of the right index finger. Draw the hands apart, and allow loops to slip off the right thumb and little finger. Lo and behold, between your two hands you will have a palpable Fish Spear.
That’s an easy one. It would take you an hour to learn how to make Coral, and a day to learn Woven Door. And a wise man knows that he could spend a lifetime with a seven foot piece of string and not exhaust all its possibilities.
Strings happened not to be Villiers’ choice of object, but they might have been, as might business or elections or any of the other ready possibilities. He chose, however, in this moment to involve himself in the construction of rustic furniture and traps and stuff. Happily.
* * *
The cot was simple canvas stretched over back-racking metal bones. It was designed to give substance to the motto: “The I.S. never sleeps.” Whoever happened to catch night duty at Binkin Island Development Area was allowed to do his best to sleep, as long as he did it on the cot, and his superiors rested easy, certain in their knowledge that a good man was awake and aware.
There was a second cot, just enough less hostile that a determined man might sleep four hours in a night on it. It was presently in use. Admiral Beagle lay lumped on it, as asleep as he could manage to be.
Sitting cross-legged on the bone-breaker was the young man who had had to suffer one tirade from Admiral Beagle on the subject of transportation and another on the subject of lumpy cots. He held a ceremonial sword in his hands. With elaborate two-handed sweeps he performed the Devotional Catalog. From time to time, he curled his lip at Admiral Beagle, which only shows that religious exercises designed to calm the mind and sooth the heart are of small avail without the aid of a willing spirit.
The door opened and let the morning in.
“Careful there, Jackson,” Comroe said, stepping out of the way of a precisely wild swing. “The ship from Pewamo Central is due any minute.”
“I’ll be up. I’ll be up.” Swish, swish, swish.
“Had breakfast?”
“No, I’ll take a cup of something hot.”
“Who’s that?” A nod at the second cot.
“Admiral Walter Beagle. He said he didn’t have any other place to stay. He wasn’t happy with the cot, though.”
“You should have given him yours.”
“Believe me, I was tempted.” Swish, swish.
“I have a message for him.” Comroe smiled. “I just picked it up at the Com Center. I didn’t know he was here, though.”
“Yes, he’s here. What are you smiling about?”
“The message for Beagle says that he has been relieved of his job as Tanner Trust Arts Council Chairman.”
The sword slowly arced to the floor. “You don’t mean it. They fired him? Hey, let me give him the message.”
“If you want.”
Jackson bounced off the cot, laid the sword down, and began making repairs in his toilet. If you are going to deliver bad news to an admiral, it’s best to look and act beyond reproach. He whistled a happy tuneless little whistle.
“Ah, yes.”
“Ship’s here.”
“Message first, ship later.” Jackson took the message, read it for confirmation, smiled broadly, and then took himself in hand. Grave, brisk, I’m doing my job and I ask no questions. Ho, ho.
He seized Admiral Beagle by the shoulder and shook him awake.
“What is the meaning of this?” Admiral Beagle asked blearily.
“Message for you, Admiral.”
Admiral Beagle roused himself enough to get his feet on the floor. He was not a quick riser. He stared at the floor as though reading portents in the pattern of the wood, and then shook his head and reached a hand up for the message. Jackson placed it within the hand with happy exactness, and then stepped back.
“My God, look at this,” Comroe said. He was standing by the window looking out at the landing field.
Jackson went to join him. “ ‘My God’ is right,” he said. “Where did they all come from? I haven’t seen so many strangers in five years.”
“Come on,” said Comroe, and the two went outside.
Admiral Beagle looked at the message in his hand for some minutes before its full import became apparent to him. He had been relieved of his job. And in this hour when peace and stability were being threatened by aliens and evil twisted men and nephews. In this hour of trial they were pulling him off the firing line. He didn’t understand. What could the Administrator be thinking of? What was happening to the world?
He crossed slowly to the window to give his mind distance. What he saw horrified him. He was a man easily horrified.
He saw his nephew and his two companions standing by the landing field gate. On the field was the shuttle from Pewamo Central. Debarking from it was a ragtail crew of students and yagoots. Ralph’s damned revolution. Ralph waved to the crowd and the crowd waved back. There must have been thirty of them.
Admiral Beagle knew all about faith and duty and the need to keep your head when all about you are a-losin’ theirs and a-blamin’ it on you. He looked about him and saw Jackson’s ceremonial sword still lying on the bed.
When Comroe and Jackson returned to the headquarters building, Admiral Beagle and the sword were gone.
* * *
Unskilled hands went to work with a will. Few of the workmen at Green Mountain had ever done construction of this sort, and many had never done work of any kind before, but all were agreed in regarding this as a niggling detail. The work was sanctioned by the fact that all were willing to do it, just as Binkin Island gained respectability as a place to be by the simple fact that they were there.
Ralph Weinsider took them in charge when they landed. It was only when he saw thirty friends and strangers stepping off the shuttle ship that he realized that if he and John and Fillmore wanted to remain in control of the situation, one of them was going to have to step forward and define the rules of the game for the newcomers. He did want to remain in control. After all, it was their idea.
He looked at Fillmore. Fillmore couldn’t.
He looked at John. John wouldn’t, much as he might like to.
So he stepped forward. He knew nothing of organization, so he was surprised to find that his improvisations were effective.
> He gathered them all around and told them they were the Green Mountain Gang. He told them what they had to face, including his uncle. He told them what they stood to accomplish. He gave them a good rich bit of Henry the Fifth: “ ‘And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.’ ” And finally he led them up the road—singing—to Green Mountain.
Ralph was both delighted and frightened by his discovery that he was a demagogue, which is to say, a People Mover. It is a lot to assume responsibility for your own conduct, and many humans never manage that much. It is much much more to assume responsibility for a herd.
Smetana reviewed the abilities of his new work force while Ralph and Daisy worked out sleeping, eating, and working arrangements up on the porch.
“All right, next,” he said. “Step up, choose your tool. Saw a board. Hit a nail. All right, you, stop. I can tell. I can tell.”
“But I’m willing,” the boy said.
Smetana designated the five most accomplished his subordinates, and with their aid gave a basic lesson in the use of hand tools. He gave assignments to each of his assistants and allowed them to choose up sides.
“Speed only is not good. Take care with the work,” he admonished as the crews charged into action.
He retired to the porch where Daisy and Ralph were working more quietly.
“The whole building seems to be shaking,” Daisy said.
“Enthusiasm. I tell you, with this noise we don’t see a plonk in the evening for a while.”
But the group was the Green Mountain Gang and determined to show it. Ralph had briefly considered teaching them, “One, two, three, four, who are we for? Green Mountain, Green Mountain, rah, rah, rah,” to increase solidarity, and then discarded the notion as unnecessary.
Ralph handed Smetana the schedule. “This is what we’ve worked out,” he said. “All you have to do is fill in the names.” Then he went to the rail and called, “John! Hey, John.”
John came up to the veranda with a hammer and a sulky expression. “They’ve got me working for your friend, Pyatt Blevko.”
“Well, let’s face it, John. You’re not very good with a hammer. Don’t worry, though. When I hammer, I’ll do it under the direction of somebody like Pyatt, too.”
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