Thistlethwaite were hanged. Or both. But now he saw something more. Even that would not preserve the galaxy from destroying itself by riches out of dupliers. Eventually, certainly, another ship must land on Sord Three. It might be by accident. But some day another ship would come. And then this same intolerable situation would exist again.
“I’ll see about dinner now,” said Thana. She turned warm, grateful, admiring eyes upon Link, and vanished.
Harl shook his head as she disappeared.
“Smart girl, that! I wouldn’t ha’ thought of usin’ manners to get your shirt off your back so’s I could admire it and have the first new cloth since the old days! Mighty smart girl, Link!”
Link said stiffly, “If you’re through with taking my shirt in vain, what now?”
Harl looked surprised. “Oh, you go off somewheres and set down and rest yourself, Link,” he said kindly. “I got things to do. Excuse me!”
He departed. Link was left alone in the great hall, morbidly weighing the alternatives, himself or Thistlethwaite or both of them hanged against the collapse of all the economy of all the galaxy, with wars, murders, lootings and rapine as a necessary consequence. He didn’t have to ask what Thistlethwaite had planned to trade for, on Sord Three. It was dupliers. And dupliers could obviously duplicate each other as well as more commonplace objects. Thistlethwaite wanted to make contact with Old Man Addison to trade unduplied objects for dupliers. Old Man Addison was evidently so disreputable a Householder that he would do business, if tempted. He’d provide a shipload of dupliers, especially duplied for the off-planet trade, in exchange for objects that dupliers couldn’t duplicate on Sord Three. It would seem to him an excellent bargain.
It would seem an excellent bargain to business men elsewhere, too, to pay a hundred million credits and half the profits for a duplier. Thistlethwaite was right. Carynths were garbage in comparative value. A business man could begin with the luxury trade and undersell all other supplies, dispensing duplied luxury items. Then he could undersell any manufacturer of any other line of goods. He could undersell normally grown foodstuffs. Any supplier of meat products. Any supplier of anything else men needed or desired. All factories would become unprofitable. They’d close. All working men would become unemployed. All wages would cease to move except into a duplier- owner’s pockets. And then there would be disaster, calamity, collapse, destruction, and hell to pay generally.
And Thistlethwaite couldn’t foresee it. He was incapable of looking beyond an immediate, enormously profitable deal.
Link scowled. He alone could envision the coming disaster. He alone could think of measures to prevent it. And he was supposed to be hanged presently for a speech about an imaginary barber! It was wrong! It was monstrous! He had to stay alive to save the galaxy from the otherwise inevitable!
There was an ufft seemingly asleep in the far corner of the hall. As Link approached, the ufft opened its eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell Harl you admired Thana when he said she was a smart girl?”
The ufft had evidently been eavesdropping. It occurred to Link that there probably weren’t many human secrets unknown to the uffts. They lounged about the village streets and they casually napped or seemed to doze in the Householder’s home itself.
“Why should I say that?” asked Link irritably.
“If you want to marry her,” said the ufft, “that’s the start of it.”
“But I just met her!” said Link.
The ufft stirred, in a manner suggesting a shrug by a four-footed animal lying prone on the floor.
“And what are you going to do about Thistlethwaite?” the ufft demanded. “He’s going to escape. It’s all arranged. Three thousand bottles of beer, payable by written contract when he gets to Old Man Addison’s. But he’s mad with you. He says you’re not part of his organization anymore. You’re fired for disobeying orders to stay in the ship. He says he got you for an astrogator—what’s an astrogator?—because he couldn’t get anybody better. He says he can astrogate the ship to where he wants to go by doing everything you did, backwards.” Link thought sulfurous thoughts. The ufft went on, “He says he and Old Man Addison will make history on Sord Three. Why is Sord Three Sord Three? Why not just Sord?”
“Sord’s the sun,” said Link grimly, thinking of something else. “This is the third world from it.”
“That’s silly!” said the ufft. “What did you come here for, anyway? What did you expect to get out of it?”
“In spite,” said Link, “of the remarkable similarity between your interrogation and those of other individuals with equally dubious justification, I merely observe that my motivation is only to be revealed to properly constituted authorities, and refrain from telling you to go fly a kite.”
“What’s a kite?” asked the ufft.
Link said, “Look! I’m supposed to be hung presently. I disapprove of the idea. How about arranging for me to escape along with Thistlethwaite?”
The ufft said, “Five thousand beers?”
“I haven’t got them,” admitted Link.
“Three? Will Old Man Addison pay them for you?”
“I’ve never met him,” said Link.
“What else have you to offer, then?” asked the ufft in a businesslike tone. “I have to get a commission, of course.”
“I made a speech in the ufft city,” said Link hopefully, “on the way here from the ship. It was very well received. I may have some… hm… friends among my listeners who would think it unfortunate if I were hanged.”
The ufft got to its four feet. It stretched itself. It yawned. Then it said, “Too bad!”
It trotted out of the hall.
Link found himself angry. In fact, he raged. Thistlethwaite, if he escaped, might actually try to astrogate the
“Oh,” said Thana cordially. “Hello.”
“Listen!” said Link, “I want to make a protest!”
“I’m terribly busy,” said Thana pleasantly, “and anyhow Harl’s the one to tell about anything that’s missing in the treatment of a guest. Would you excuse me?”
Link changed his approach.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said rather desperately. “I think I know how to identify the kind of… of salt you want to add to bog-iron to make good knives from your unduplied sample.”
“For that,” said Thana warmly, “I’ll stop cooking! What is it, Link?”
“When you put bog-iron in the duplier,” said Link harassedly, “and the duplier makes a knife, the bog-iron crumbles because the iron’s been taken away.” Link was irritated, now. “The idea is to make a series of knives, adding different rock samples to each one, until you get a good knife. Then the rock that contained the alloy-metal you wanted will be crumbled like the iron. See?”
“Wonderful!” said Thana, pleased. “I should have thought of it! I’ll try it tomorrow!”
There was a faint noise outside. It was a shrill, ululating sound. Link paid no attention. Instead, he said urgently:
“And I think I can work out some ways that might get electricity back!”
“That would be marvelous,” said Thana. “You must tell Harl what they are! At dinner, Link. Tell him about them at dinner. He’s busy now, arranging about the torchlight for the hanging. But I thank you very kindly for telling me the trick to make better knives. I’m sure it will work! But I really do have to get dinner ready!”
The noise outside grew louder. There were shouts. It sounded like a first-class riot beginning. Thana tilted her head on one side, listening.
“The uffts are putting on a demonstration,” she said without particular interest. “Why don’t you go watch it,