as a participant, the history that you sought to learn.
And it could be used in other ways as well. You could learn to build anything, even a spaceship, by actually building one.
You could learn how an alien machine might operate by putting it together, step by simple step. There was no field of knowledge in which it would not work?and work far better than standard educational methods.
Right then and there, I made up my mind we'd not release a single stick until one of us had previewed it. No telling what a man might find in one of them that could be put to practical use.
I fell asleep dreaming about chemical miracles and new engineering principles, of better business methods and new philosophic concepts. And I even figured out how a man could make a mint of money out of a philosophic concept.
We were on top of the universe for sure. We'd set up a corporation with more angles than you could shake a stick at. We would be big time. In a thousand years or so, of course, there'd be a reckoning, but none of us would be around to take part in it.
Doc sobered up by morning and I had Frost heave him in the brig. He wasn't dangerous any longer, but I figured that a spell in pokey might do him a world of good. After a while, I intended to talk to him, but right at the moment I was much too busy to be bothered with him.
I went over to the silo with Hutch and Pancake and had another session with the professor on the double- seat machine and picked out a batch of electives and settled various matters.
Other professors began supplying us with the courses, all boxed and labelled, and we set the crew and the engine gang to work hauling them and the machines aboard and stowing them away.
Hutch and I stood outside the silo and watched the work go on.
'I never thought', said Hutch, 'that we'd hit the jackpot this way. To be downright honest with you, I never thought we'd hit it. I always thought we'd just go on looking. It goes to show how wrong a man can be.'
'Those professors are soft in the head,' I said. 'They never asked me any questions. I can think of a lot they could have asked that I couldn't answer.'
'They're honest and think everyone's the same. That's what comes of getting so wrapped up in something you have time for nothing else.'
And that was true enough. The professor race has been busy for a million years doing a job it took a million years to do?and another million and a million after that?and that never would be finished.
'I can't figure why they did it,' I said. 'There's no profit in it.'
'Not for them,' said Hutch, 'but there is for us. I tell you, Captain, it takes brains to work out the angles.'
I told him what I had figured out about previewing everything before we gave it out, so we would be sure we let nothing slip away from us.
Hutch was impressed. 'I'll say this for you, Captain?you don't miss a bet. And that's the way it should be. We might as well milk this deal for every cent it's worth.'
'I think we should be methodical about this previewing business,' I said. 'We should start at the beginning and go straight through to the end.'
Hutch said he thought so, too. 'But it will take a lot of time,' he warned me.
'That's why we should start right now. The orientation course is on board already and we could start with that. All we'd have to do is set up a machine and Pancake could help you with it.'
'Help me!' yelled Hutch. 'Who said anything about me doing it? I ain't cut out for that stuff. You know yourself I never do any reading…'
'It isn't reading. You just live it. You'll be having fun while we're out here slaving.'
'I won't do it.'
'Now look,' I said, 'let's use a little sense. I should be out here at the silo seeing everything goes all right and close at hand so I can hold a pow-wow with the professor if there's any need of it. We need Frost to superintend the loading. And Doc is in the clink. That leaves you and Pancake. I can't trust Pancake with that previewing job. He's too scatterbrained. He'd let a fortune glide right past him without recognizing it. Now you're a fast man with a buck and the way I see it…'
'Since you put it that way,' said Hutch, all puffed up, 'I suppose I am the one who should be doing it.'
That evening, we were all dog-tired, but we felt fine. We had made a good start with the loading and in a few more days would be heading home.
Hutch seemed to be preoccupied at supper. He fiddled witt his food. He didn't talk at all and he seemed like a man with something on his mind. As soon as I could, I cornered him.
'How's it going, Hutch?'
'Okay,' he said. 'Just a lot of gab. Explaining what it's all about. Gab.'
'Like what?'
'Some of it's hard to tell. Takes a lot of explaining I haven't got the words for. Maybe one of these days you'll find the time to run through it yourself.'
'You can bet your life I will,' I said, somewhat sore at him.
'There's nothing worth a dime in it so far,' said Hutch.
I believed him on that score. Hutch could spot a dollar twenty miles away.
I went down to the brig to see Doc. He was sober. Also unrepentant. 'You outreached yourself this time,' he said. 'That stuff isn't yours to sell. There's knowledge in that building that belongs to the Galaxy?for free.'
I explained to him what had happened, how we'd found the silo was a university and how we were taking the courses on board for the human race after signing up for them all regular and proper. I tried to make it sound as if we were being big, but Doc wouldn't buy a word of it.
'You wouldn't give your dying grandma a drink of water unless she paid you in advance,' he said. 'Don't give me any of that gruff about service to humanity.'
So I left him to stew in the brig a while and went up to my cabin. I was sore at Hutch and all burned up at Doc and my tail was dragging. I fell asleep in no time.
The work went on for several days and we were almost finished. I felt pretty good about it. After supper, I climbed down the ladder and sat on the ground beside the ship and looked across at the silo. It still looked big and awesome, but not as big as that first day?because now it had lost some of its strangeness and even the purpose of it had lost some of its strangeness, too.
Just as soon as we got back to civilization, I promised myself, we'd seal the deal as tight as possible. Probably we couldn't legally claim the planet because the professors were intelligent and you can't claim a planet that has intelligence, but there were plenty of other ways we could get our hooks into it for keeps.
I sat there and wondered why no one came down to sit with me, but no one did, so finally I clambered up the ladder.
I went down to the brig to have a word with Doc. He was still unrepentant, but he didn't seem too hostile. 'You know, Captain,' he said, 'there have been times when I've not seen eye to eye with you, but despite that I've respected you and sometimes even liked you.'
'What are you getting at?' I asked him. 'You can't soft-talk yourself out of the spot you're in.'
'There's something going on and maybe I should tell you. You are a forthright rascal. You don't even take the trouble to deny you are. You have no scruples and probably no morals, and that's all right, because you don't pretend to have. You are…'
'Spit it out! If you don't tell me what's going on, I'll come in there and wring it out of you.'
'Hutch has been down here several times,' said Doc, 'inviting me to come up and listen to one of those recordings he is fooling with. Said it was right down my alley. Said I'd not be sorry. But there was something wrong about it. Something sneaky.' He stared round-eyed through the bars at me. 'You know, Captain, Hutch was never sneaky.'
'Well, go on!'
'Hutch has found out something, Captain. If I were you, I'd be finding out myself.'
I didn't even wait to answer him. I remembered how Hutch had been acting, fiddling with his food and preoccupied, not talking very much. And come to think of it, some of the others had been acting strangely, too. I'd just been too busy to give it much attention.
Running up the catwalks, I cussed with every step I took. A captain of a ship should never get so busy that he loses touch?he has to stay in touch all the blessed time. It had all come down to being in a hurry, of wanting to
