days back at the base to find out that when these ships were built, almost five hundred years ago, nobody bothered to include detail drawings of the door mechanism.”
“But why? You certainly know how to build—”
“We know how to build Star Class ships, sure. We’ve built a few in the past century or two. There’s never been need for replacement, really. These ships are designed to last forever. The original fleet was conceived to fill the System’s needs for a full thousand years.”
“But the doors on the few ships that have been built. How—”
“The ship’s we’ve built were exact duplicates of Captain Fromer’s ship—except for the door.” Bullard’s long face radiated despair. “No one ever questioned why the door mechanism wasn’t included in the original plans. We simply designed another type—a different type—of door.”
“Well, you certainly can find out how this particular door works, can’t you?”
“I hope so,” Bullard said, wringing his hands. “But we have a couple of other problems. Number one, Captain Fromer has an extremely important passenger aboard. None other than His Exalted Excellency, R’thagna Bar. He is—or was—on his way home after concluding a treaty of friendship with the President of the Federation.”
Hansen managed a whistle.
“Furthermore,” Bullard continued, “His Excellency has to be home soon to get there in time for the mating season. This occurs once in a lifetime, I’m told, and this is his only chance to continue the ancestral rule—”
“Wait a minute,” Hansen said. “Are you trying to say that you can’t solve a simple problem like getting him home and getting him out of the ship? You can always cut it in two, can’t you?”
“These ships were made to last forever,” Bullard explained. “The hull is, of course, pseudo-met, but, not the kind of pseudo-met used for other applications. In short, about the only way you’ll get in that ship is to vaporize it.”
“But can’t you simply disassemble the door mechanism? My God, how complicated can it be?”
“We’re going to try to do just that,” Bullard said without a trace of confidence. “As far as the complication goes, let me say just this: it’s full of moving parts.”
“What are you getting at?” Hansen asked.
“Just this. These ships are perfect mechanisms. There is hardly anything in them that could be called a moving part. Now a door has to open and close. Sure, we devised a simple, safe way to do it a few hundred years after the original fleet was built. The men who designed the original door mechanism felt, perhaps, that it was incongruous to include it in the first place. Maybe that is why they threw away the plans. God knows, it is incongruous. Look! Here’s a photo we took of one in a ship back at base.”
Hansen scanned the photograph. It was a meaningless jumble. He handed it back. “Well, make yourself at home. I’m afraid that the only thing I can help with will be radio communication to Captain Fromer’s ship.”
“Good enough,” Bullard said. “I’m expecting someone else tomorrow. After you bring him down, feel free to drop over and see me anytime.”
Bullard went back to his ship, and Hansen went to bed. He dreamed of His Exalted Excellency R’thagna Bar, growing angrier day by day as the time of mating came closer. In his dream he suddenly came upon a magnificent solution to the problem, a solution involving a telepathic system of fertilization. He woke up before he had completely worked out the details.
Bullard’s friend arrived the same morning. He was a small, dark active little man whom Hansen immediately disliked.
“Meet Dr. Quemos,” Bullard said when Hansen dropped in on them. “Dr. Quemos is a specialist in the history of technology. He thinks he knows how our cute little door mechanism is made.”
“Can’t say for sure,” Quemos said, “but I’d guess that those components are made of metal—real metal.”
“I thought that metal was used only in jewelry,” Hansen said.
Dr. Quemos grinned slyly. “That’s what most people think. Actually, refined metal of various types was used in large masses, formed masses, for thousands of years. Historically speaking, the pseudo-mets are relatively new.”
“It’s difficult to imagine metal functioning as machinery,” Hansen mused.
“And you say that this door mechanism has moving parts, lots of them?”
“Moving parts are nothing to be afraid of,” Quemos said. “Here, look at this.” He put something small on the table, much in the manner of a young boy dropping a garter snake in the midst of school girls. Bullard and Hansen crowded around. “Now, take turns,” said Quemos sharply, “and don’t drop it. It’s priceless, I assure you.” The ancient wrist watch with its transparent back was passed from hand to hand.
“Frightening little monster, isn’t it,” Bullard said.
“Those small round wheels are called gears,” elucidated Quemos, “one gear turns another, which turns another, and so on. I rather imagine that your door is operated on some similar principle.”
“I seem to be the one who asks all the schoolboy questions,” Hansen began, “would somebody tell me why Captain Fromer doesn’t take His Excellency to his home planet, land the ship, and then let his technical staff tear off the door mechanism?”
“We’ve gone through that,” Bullard said wearily. “Unfortunately we need special tools. And there’s no way to get them into the ship.”
“Can I speak to Captain Fromer?” Quemos asked.
“Right away,” Hansen said. He pressed his hand in various patterns on his belt. “This is Hansen. Let us talk to Captain Fromer, please.”
“Fromer here. Who is it?”
“Dr. Quemos speaking. How is your passenger?”
“My passenger is fine. But he keeps telling me that he is very anxious to plant his seed. When can you get us out of here?”
“Plant his seed?” said Quemos.
“There’s nothing salacious about this, I’ve been assured. He simply has a biological craving at this time in his life to—to plant his seed.”
“I got problems like that, too,” Bullard said, “but I don’t go around telling everybody.”
“Stop clowning,” Fromer snapped, “you guys better find a way to fix this damn door or you’ll have a galactic war on your hands. Anybody have any ideas yet?”
“We’re sure that the door mechanism is made of metal,” Quemos said, “and the construction is probably based on the principal of a worm gear.”
“A what?”
“A worm gear, Captain,” Quemos said patiently. “It’s an ancient metal device that was sometimes used for closing large doors. There is also the possibility that the door is closed and opened by dogs. These seem to have been used, at least, to operate doors of undersea crafts. Although we’re not quite certain about the function of dogs.”
The captain maintained a stony silence.
“Also,” Quemos continued, “we have unearthed, so to speak, a reference to a metal component called a babbitt—”
“Now see here!” Captain Fromer roared, “who do you think you’re kidding with this talk about worms, dogs and rabbits—”
“Babbitts, Captain, babbitts! Perhaps a type of bearing. Anyway, we’re at work on the problem, I assure you.” Quemos motioned to Hansen that he was through talking.
During the next three days, Hansen twice visited Bullard and Quemos. On each occasion, he found the two men in trance-like conditions, ostensibly thinking through the problem that they had been assigned to solve, but more probably, Hansen guessed, brooding about the reaction of Sector Headquarters to their daily progress reports which Hansen had been relaying for them. Hansen had only sympathy for the people back at Sector Headquarters, for if these two experts were the Galaxy’s two top trouble-shooters, the Federation, was not, as Hansen put it to himself, in very good shape to fight a war with one hundred billion enraged citizens who worshiped His Exalted
