The Unorthodox Engineers

the idea.”

“Come to think of it,” said Fritz, “neither would I. Better abandon the project, Jacko, and come back up here. I think I’ve got a better idea anyway.”

“Is this a new plan, or just good, honest desperation?”

“I’m looking at it this way: there are two ways of making a piece of equipment yield the secret of its function—you can dismantle it and worry the principle out of its components, or you can simply set it operating.”

“I hope I’m misunderstanding you,” said Jacko. “For one ghastly moment I had the idea you were proposing to re-start the Tazoon subway without knowing how it worked.”

“Can you think of a faster way of finding out how it works than by seeing it in action?”

“Is one allowed to resign from the project?” asked Jacko. “Or is suicide the only logical form of escape?”

“You can also be beaten to death by your superior officer. The boys claim they have unscrambled the power lines in the gallery here, and we’ve made a guess at what should prove to be the main input lines.”

“So?”

“So I want to trace them back to source. Then we can start investigating whether or not we can restart the native power producing plant. I want every man I can get employed on tracing those lines, Jacko, and I want you to supervise personally. Remember, we have to get the whole thing operational inside three months if we’re to beat Nash’s deadline.”

“I still think it’s a waste of time,” said Jacko. “If we’re right that the Tazoon civilization collapsed because of lack of power, what chance have we of finding it thousands of years later?”

“I suspect the answer is quantitative,” said Fritz. “They were trying to run a civilization, we’re trying only to run a subway. I’d estimate our requirements at perhaps one ten-millionth of theirs or less. Viewed in that light it doesn’t seem too difficult a task, now does it?”

Six

Nevill’s team had concentrated on clearing only the tops of the taller buildings. Generally the sand penetration into the interiors was not total, and thus they had access to large modules of Tazoon architectural environment without having to wait for the total clearance which ultimately would follow as resources became available. Once gaining the interior of a building they were relatively free to explore the entire contents of the lower levels. Archaeologically, the finds were so numerous that complete classification and analysis would take many decades.

So Nevill set up specialist study groups to make a complete analysis of certain typical areas as a guide to rapidly separating the unique from the mundane when new areas were opened up. Representative samples were carefully crated for transport to Terra, where a more exhaustive examination could be undertaken.

For the next two weeks Fritz himself was kept fully employed in his role as authority on alien science and technology, and the sheer mass of work confronting him could have kept him comfortably occupied for several years at least. It was now painfully obvious that the staff of the Tazoon expedition could have been increased a hundredfold and still the finds would have been more numerous than the researchers.

Fritz’s own work in the field was hampered by the fact that he was working without assistance, the entire complement of the U.E. squad being devoted to locating the elusive power source for the subway.

On this latter point even Nevill had been unable to offer any help. Although detailed maps of the sectors of the buried city were beginning to be built up there was nothing in them which suggested any power generation or distribution facilities. This was not conclusive, because in very few areas had it yet been possible to excavate below the level of the basic terrain on which the city had been built, and what lay underneath was still a subject for conjecture, but the pattern of conductors disappearing into the depths was sufficient to convince Fritz that whatever the source it was probably not located within the city confines.

Jacko’s report did not appear to illuminate the situation.

“I tell you, Fritz, that main power input cable you gave us was nothing of the sort. For fifteen blasted days we’ve traced that thing. A cable it may be, but it’s a distribution circuit if it’s anything at all.”

Fritz scowled. “Are you sure you didn’t lose it and pick up another cable in error?”

“Do me a favour!” said Jacko. “We were feeding a signal into the thing at the switching house and picking it up all the way down the cable. I tell you that thing is a distribution complex originating, not terminating, at the subway building.”

Fritz sat up sharply. “Distributing power where?”

“Well—I hate to tell you this, but it covers a fair proportion of the Southern plain. The cable divides and sub-divides ad-infmitum as far as we can tell. We counted divisions into roughly forty thousand pairs and that still left a fair majority—but we gave up when we found what was at the end of a dozen or so of the minor pairs. I’ll give you three guesses… ”

Fritz saw what was coming. “I can imagine… those damned Tazoon harps.”

“Harps, harps and nothing but harps, and never a string between them. Listening to music I could understand, but can you seriously maintain that they installed millions of loudspeakers across the plain just so that they could listen to the trains? Nobody could be that alien!”

Fritz thumped the table. “Jacko, you’re a ruddy genius!”

“Am I?” Jacko blinked.

“Damn right. You’ve given me the clue I needed. Get the squad together, Jacko, we’re going to re-start the subways of Tazoo.”

Ten weeks of the precious three months of Colonel Nash’s ultimatum had elapsed before they were in a position to make the preliminary tests. The intervening period had been one of furious activity for the U.E. personnel, and one over which Fritz had draped a veil of secrecy such that nobody outside of his group had any idea of the direction of his slowly unfolding plans. But on the final evening everything was ready. Fresh heavy-duty cables threaded their way out of the subway entrance. On the platform, two dozen floodlights illuminated the mechanical achievements of a culture which had passed many thousands of years before, and shone into the tunnel to light a vehicle which had stopped in that position while Neanderthals still walked the hills and plains of Terra.

Shortly before sunset Fritz and his team assembled at the subway building. Already the calm stasis of the day was beginning to tremble with unease as the riding cloudrace overhead broke lower, heralding the nightly windy torment of the land. This was no lull before the storm but an increasing tension, a tight coil being further tightened to the inevitable breaking point which was the lash of the sand-filled gale. As the storm broke they hastened inside.

Fritz found himself more than slightly in awe of what he contemplated doing. Immaculate as was the preservation of these Tazoon artifacts he could not help remembering, as an engineer, the patterns of low temperature creep, the grain growth, the diffusion—all the degradation of properties which fabricated metals might be heir to after a hundred thousand years of rest. Fortunately the Tazoons had understood their materials and their atmosphere well, and apparently had built to last, with a success which was staggering.

In any case, Fritz was now committed. Sentiment and curiosity apart, the very continuance of the U.E. depended on his ability to re-activate the subway. He could not draw back now even though the whole place threaten to crumble about his head in a welter of dust and thunder.

As was his custom when there were unavoidable risks to be taken, Fritz alone attended the array of instruments set up in the subway proper. Jacko was in the switching gallery on the other end of the communicator, in a hastily conceived control set-up which included the rest of the relevant monitoring instruments they had been able to piece together.

Jacko, uncomfortably aware of the danger of Fritz’s position, had sought to dissuade his boss from being present for the actual test run. But Fritz, foreseeing the cataclysmic damage to the installation which might result from the experiment, had decided to be present to gain first-hand experience of the principles of operation—which might by their own employment become hopelessly obscured.