The Ethical Engineer

XI

Seen from the surrounding hills, Appsala looked like a burning city that was being slowly washed into the sea. Only when they had come closer was it clear that the smoke was from the multifold chimneys, both large and small, that studded the buildings, and that the city began at the shore and covered a number of islands in what must be a shallow lagoon. Large sea-going ships were tied up at the seaward side of the city and closer to the mainland smaller craft were being poled through the canals. Jason searched anxiously for a spaceport or any signs of interstellar culture but saw nothing. Then the hills intervened as the trail cut off to one side and approached the sea some distance from the city.

A fair-sized sailing vessel was tied up at the end of a stone wharf, obviously awaiting them, and the captives were tied hand and foot and tossed into the hold. Jason managed to wriggle around until he could get his eye to a crack between two badly fitting planks and recited a running travelogue of the cruise, apparently for the edification of his companions, but really for his own benefit since the sound of his own voice always cheered and encouraged him.

“Our voyage is nearing its close and before us opens up the romantic and ancient city of Appsala, famed for its loathsome customs, murderous natives and archaic sanitation facilities, of which this watery channel this ship is now entering seems to be the major cloaca. There are islands on both sides, the smaller ones covered with hovels so decrepit that in comparison the holes in the ground of the humblest animals appear to be palaces, while the larger islands appear to be forts, each one walled and barbicaned and presenting a warlike face to the world. There couldn’t be that many forts in a town this size so I am led to believe that each one is undoubtedly the guarded stronghold of one of the tribes, groups or clans that our friend Judas told us about. Look on these monuments to ultimate selfishness and beware: this is the end product of the system that begins with slave-holders like the former Ch’aka with their tribes of krenoj crackers, and builds up through familiar hierarchies like the D’zertanoj and reaches its zenith of depravity behind those strong walls. It is still absolute power that rules absolutely, each man out for all that he can get and the only way to climb being over the bodies of others, and all physical discoveries and inventions being treated as private and personal secrets to be hidden and used only for personal gain. Never have I seen human greed and selfishness carried to such extremes and I admire Homo sapiens’ capacity to follow through on an idea, no matter how it hurts.”

The ship lost way as it backed its sails and Jason fell from his precarious perch into the stinking bilge. “The descent of man,” he muttered and inched his way out.

Piles grated along the sides and with much shouting and cursed orders the ship came to a halt. The hatch above was slid back and the three captives were rushed to the deck. The ship was tied up to a dock in a pool of water surrounded by buildings and high walls. Behind them a large sea gate was just swinging shut, through which the ship had entered from the canal. They could see no more because they were pushed into a doorway and through halls and past guards until they ended up in a large central room. It was unfurnished except for the dais at the far end on which stood a large and rusty iron throne. The man on the throne, undoubtedly the Hertug Persson, sported a magnificent white beard and shoulder length hair, his nose was round and red, his eyes blue and watery. He nibbled at a krenoj impaled delicately on a two-tined iron fork.

“Tell me,” the Hertug shouted suddenly, “why you should not be killed at once?”

“We are your slaves, Hertug, we are your slaves,” everyone in the room shouted in unison, waving their hands in the air at the same time. Jason missed the first chorus, but came in on the second. Only Mikah did not join in the chant-and-wave, speaking instead in a solitary voice after the pledge of allegiance was completed.

“I am no man’s slave.”

The commander of the soldiers swung his thick bow in a short arc that terminated on the top of Mikah’s head: he dropped stunned to the floor.

“You have a new slave, oh Hertug,” the commander said.

“Which is the one who knows the secrets of the caroj?” the Hertug asked and Snarbi pointed at Jason.

“Him there, oh mightiness. He can make caroj and he can make the monster that burns and moves them, I know because I watched him do it. He also made balls of fire that burned the D’zertanoj and many other things. I brought him to be your slave so that he could make caroj for the Perssonoj. Here are the pieces of the caroj we traveled in, after it was consumed by its own fire.” Snarbi shook the tools and burnt fragments out onto the floor and the Hertug curled his lip at them.

“What proof is this?” he asked, and turned to Jason. “These things mean nothing. How can you prove to me, slave, that you can do the things he says?”

Jason entertained briefly the idea to deny all knowledge of the matter, which would be a neat revenge against Snarbi who would certainly meet a sticky end for causing all this trouble for nothing, but he discarded the thought as fast as it came. Partly for humanitarian reasons, Snarbi could not help being what he was, but mostly because he had no particular desire to be put to the question. He knew nothing about the local torture methods, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“Proof is easy, Hertug of all the Perssonoj, because I know everything about everything. I can build machines that walk, that talk, that run, fly, swim, bark like a dog and roll on their backs.”

“You will build a caroj for me?”

“It could be arranged, if you have the right kind of tools I could use. But I must first know what is the specialty of your clan, if you know what I mean. Like the Trozelligoj make caroj and the D’zertanoj pump oil. What do your people do?”

“You cannot know as much as you say if you do not know of the glories of the Perssonoj!”

“I come from a distant land and as you know news travels slowly around these parts.”

“Not around the Perssonoj,” the Hertug said scornfully and thumped his chest. “We can talk across the width of the country and always know where our enemies are. We can send magic on wires to kill, or magic to make light in a glass ball or magic that will pluck the sword from an enemy’s hand and drive terror into his heart.”

“It sounds like your gang has the monopoly on electricity, which is good to hear. If you have some heavy forging equipment….”

“Stop!” the Hertug ordered. “Leave! Out — everyone except the sciuloj. Not the new slave, he stays here,” he shouted when the soldiers grabbed Jason.

The room emptied and the handful of men who remained were all a little long in the tooth and each wore a brazen, sun-burst type decoration on his chest. They were undoubtedly adept in the secret electrical arts and they fingered their weapons and grumbled with unconcealed anger at Jason’s forbidden knowledge. The Hertug signaled him to continue.

“You used a sacred word. Who told it to you? Speak quickly or you will be killed.”

“Didn’t I tell you I knew everything? I can build a caroj and given a little time I can improve on your electrical works, if your technology is on the same level as the rest of this planet.”

“Do you know what lies behind the forbidden portal?” the Hertug asked, pointing to a barred, locked and guarded door at the other end of the room. “There is no way you can have seen what is there, but if you can tell me what lies beyond it I will know you are the wizard that you claim you are.”

“I have a very strange feeling that I have been over this ground once before,” Jason sighed. “All right, here goes. You people here make electricity, maybe chemically, though I doubt if you would get enough power that way, so you must have a generator of some sort. That will be a big magnet, a piece of special iron that can pick up other iron, and you spin it around fast next to some coils of wire and out comes electricity. You pipe this through copper wire to whatever devices you have, and they can’t be very many. You say you talk across the country. I’ll bet you don’t talk at all but send little clicks, dots and dashes…. I’m right aren’t I?” The foot shuffling and rising buzz from the adepts was a sure sign that he was hitting close. “I have an idea for you, I think I’ll invent the telephone. Instead of the old clikkety-clack how would you like to really talk across the country? Speak into a gadget here and have your voice come out at the far end of the wire?”

The Hertug’s piggy little eyes blinked greedily. “It is said that in the old days this could be done, but we have tried and have failed. Can you do this thing?”

“I can — if we can come to an agreement first. But before I make any promises I have to see your equipment.”

This brought the usual groans of complaint about secrecy, but in the end avarice won over taboo and the door to the holy of holies was opened for Jason while two of the sciuloj, with bared and ready daggers, stood at his sides. At almost the same instant Jason looked in through the door he heard the sound.

Now the reaction of the human body, while remarkably fast, need certain finite measures of time and have been measured over and over again with a great deal of accuracy. The commands of the brain, speedy as they may be, must be carried by sluggish nerves and put into operation by inert lumps of muscle. Therefore to say that Jason’s reactions were instantaneous is to tell a lie, or at least exaggerate. Only to his watchers did his actions appear to take place that fast; they were older, and less alert, and had not had the advantage of Pyrran survival training. So to their point of view the sacred portal was opened and Jason vanished in a flurry of activity. Two lightning blows sent his guardians spinning, and before they had fallen to the floor their supposed captive was through the door and it was slammed in their faces. Before the first dumfounded Persson could jump forward the bolt grated home inside and the door was sealed.

Things were a little more complex than that to Jason. When the door opened he had had a good view of the inside of the room, of a slave cranking the handle on a crude collection of junk that could only have been a generator. Thick wires looped across the room from the thing to a man who stood before some blades of copper pushing at them with a wooden stick, while above his head fat sparks leaped the gap between two brassy spheres. As if to complete this illustration for a bronze-age edition of “First Steps in Electricity” another cable twisted up from the spark gap and vanished out a small window. The entire thing might have been labeled “How to Generate A Radio Signal in the Crudest Manner.” As Jason reached this conclusion in the smallest fraction of a second, and at almost the very same instant, he heard the sound.

What he heard could have been distant thunder, an earthquake, a volcano or some giant explosion. It rumbled and rolled, muffled by distance, yet still clear. It resembled none of these things to Jason, but made him think only of a high altitude rocket or jet, cleaving through the atmosphere.

It must have been the juxtaposition of these two things, occurring as they did at the same time, the view of a radio transmitter, no matter how crude, and the thought that there might be a civilized craft or some kind up there containing men who would come to his aid if he could only contact them. The idea was an insane one, but even as he realized that fact he was through the door and bolting it behind him. Perhaps he did it because he had been pushed around entirely too much and felt like pushing someone else for a change. In any case it was done, insane or not, and he might as well carry through.

The generator slave looked up, startled, but when Jason glanced at him he lowered his eyes and kept cranking. The man who had been working the transmitter spun about, startled by the slam of the door and the muffled pounding and shouts that followed instantly from the other side. He groped for his dagger when he saw the stranger, but before it was clear of the scabbard Jason was on him and after a few quick Pyrran infighting blows the man lost all interest in what was happening and slid to the floor. Jason straddled his body, picked the stick up, nodded to the slave who began cranking faster, and began to tap out a message.

S-O-S… S-O-S… he sent first, then as fragments of code came back to him he spelled out J-A-S-O-N D-A-L-T H-R-E…. N-E-E-D A-I-D…. R-I–C-H…. R-E-W-A-R-D… F-O-R… H-E-L-P….

He varied this a bit, repeated his name often, and tried other themes appealing for off-world aid. It was a slim chance that he had heard a rocket, and even slimmer chance that they would pick his message out of the static if they happened to be listening. He had no evidence that any off-worlders were in contact with this planet, merely hope. He tapped on and the slave ground away industriously. His arm was growing tired by the time the old guard in the other room found something heavy enough to swing and broke the door down. Jason stopped tapping and turned to face the apoplectic Hertug, rubbing his tired wrist.

“Your equipment works fine, though it could use a lot of improvements.”

“Kill him…. Kill!” the Hertug sputtered.

“Kill me and there goes your caroj, as well as your telephone system and your only chance to wrap up all the industrial secrets in one big bundle,” Jason said, looking around for something heavy to swing.

A gigantic explosion slammed into the room; a crack appeared in one wall and dust floated down from the ceiling. There was a sound of snapping small arms fire in the distance.

“It worked!” Jason shouted with unrestrained glee and hurled a heavy roll of wire at the startled men in the doorway and followed instantly after it in a headlong dive. There was a flurry of action, most of the damage being done by his boots, then he was through and running out of the throne room with the men bellowing in pursuit.

A small war seemed to be raging ahead, the sharp explosions of gunfire being mixed with the heavier thud of bombs and grenades. Walls were down, doors blasted open while confused soldiers rushed in panic through the clouds of dust. One of them tried to stop Jason who kept on going, carrying the man’s club with him. Sunlight shone ahead and he dived through a riven wall and landed, rolling in the open ground next to the dock. A spaceship’s lifeboat stood there, still glowing hot from the speed of descent, and next to it stood Meta keeping up a continuous fire with her gun, happily juggling micro-grenades with her free hand.

“What were you waiting for,” she snapped. “I have been in orbit over this planet for a month now, waiting for some word from you. There are dozens of radio transmitters on this continent and I have been monitoring them all.” She fired a long burst at an upper story where some bowmen had been foolish enough to appear, then ran to Jason, eyes wet with tears. “Oh, darling, I was so worried.”

She held him — with her grenade-throwing arm — and kissed him fiercely. She kept her eyes open while she was doing this but only had to fire once.

“Jason!” a voice called and Ijale appeared, half-supporting the still dazed Mikah.

“Who is this?” Meta snapped, the chill back in her voice.

“Why — just someone I know,” Jason answered, smiling insincerely. “You should recognize the man, he’s the one who arrested me.”

“Here is a gun, you will want to kill him yourself.”

Jason took the gun, but used it to clear a nearby roof-top, the powerful kick of the Pyrran automatic was like a caress on the heel of his hand.

“I don’t think I want to kill him. He saved my life once, though he has tried to lose it for me a dozen times since. Let’s get upstairs to the ship and I’ll tell you about it. There are more healthy spots than this to have a conversation.”