When in the Course, page 4
She looked at it in mock-horror, and then laughed.
“That—me?” she demanded in Lingua Terra. “But so many letters. And it goes on its side, and the wrong way.” She made the funny clawing gesture in front of her face, which seemed to convey complete bafflement. “I will never learn this!”
“Oh, you’ve just had it, for now. Let’s take a break.”
“Take?” She made a grasping gesture. “Break?” She snapped something imaginary with her fingers. “Break what?”
“Throw it in. Time out,” he told her. “Stop this now and do something else.”
“Yes!” She jumped up and caught one of his hands in both of hers. “Let us take a break in the flower-and-grass place. The garden.”
“Good. Or would you rather take a ride in an aircar?” He knew what the answer to that would be. As they went out, Nancy Patterson, trying to teach Harmakros the Arabic numeration and the importance of a figure for absolutely nothing at all, waved to them. Another Terro-Freyan romance sprouting; somebody else wouldn’t listen to Charley Clifford.
The big policy debate started as soon as Karl Zahanov and Margaret Hale went up to relieve Luther and Laurence on ship-watch. It wasn’t that Luther wanted to make trouble; he’d just come to some conclusions the correctness of which he was positive. That was usual with idealists.
In the first place, he wanted them all to leave Tarr-Hostigos and go to Harphax. He’d heard, like everybody else, of the trouble between Ptosphes and Gormoth of Nostor, and he wanted to be out of Hostigos before a war started. Again, it would have been easy to do Luther an injustice. He wasn’t a coward; he just thought all wars were wrong and he didn’t want any part in one. Then, he wanted to start immediate trading operations. He and Lourenço and, by screen, Zahanov, had designed a hundred and fifty foot freighter with a wooden hull, which could be built by local labor and lifted with one of the heavy-duty contragravity generators. It looked more like a cantilever bridge than an airframe, but he estimated a five hundred ton payload and an airspeed of a hundred and fifty mph.
“We all admit we have to find something we can sell on Terra,” he argued. “We won’t find it sitting around here, and the best way we can learn about the products of this planet will be by trading-voyages.”
Nobody denied that. What Barron couldn’t see was the necessity of leaving Hostigos, especially when things were just getting good with him and Rylla. And he could see a great many objections to a move to Harphax.
“We still don’t know what things are like there. We don’t know what powerful established trading interests we’d come into conflict with, and neither do we know how soon this King Kaiphranos would get envious of us and try to grab our ship, not realizing that it wouldn’t do him any good after he got it. We don’t have that to worry about here.”
“Well, can we trust Ptosphes?” Luther countered. “He’s been very hospitable so far, but—”
“We can trust him,” Fitzurse said. “We could wipe this whole castle garrison out at the first act of treachery, and he knows it. We couldn’t defend ourselves effectively in the middle of a couple of hundred thousand people in Harphax. Trade there, yes. But keep our base here.”
“We still need a treaty. I think we can get one from Ptosphes; a better treaty than we could get from Kaiphranos, at least now.”
‘Well, Kaiphranos is Ptosphes’ sovereign; a treaty with a subject prince wouldn’t be as good as a treaty from the king. I doubt if Ptosphes has enough sovereignty to give us a treaty the Federation Colonial Office would accept,” Luther argued.
“You know why we can get a treaty from Ptosphes? He needs our help in case Gormoth of Nostor invades him. If King Kaiphranos hasn’t enough sovereignty to keep his subject princes from making war on one another, he doesn’t have enough sovereignty outside the city of Harphax to make a treaty with.”
“That’s another thing!” Luther began clamoring. “I’ve heard about that, too. That’s why I want us to get out of here, before we get caught in the middle of a war.”
There was, he had long ago learned, one infallible weapon against the idealist, and that was moral indignation.
“You mean, you want us to tell Ptosphes it was nice knowing him and thanks for everything, and then run out on him when he needs help?” he demanded. “Abandon him and his people to massacre and enslavement? Maybe you could do that and still respect yourself; be damned if I could.”
“Yes: I thought I was the business-is-business guy, and Luther was the idealist,” Almagro put in. “If that’s idealism, I’ll take a plate of hash.”
“And have you any idea,’ Fitzurse asked, “what effect a shameful desertion like that would have on our prestige? Why, no Freyan would ever trust any Terran’s friendship again.”
“Luther, it’s our moral duty to help Ptosphes defend his country.” Surprisingly, the feminine voice came from the screen-speaker. Generally Margaret Hale stayed completely out of these bickers, unless they involved the Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory of Non-Einsteinian Relativity and the Dillingham hyperdrive. “You say you’re opposed to war; why, if we didn’t help Ptosphes, we’d be no better than passive accomplices of this Prince Gormoth in an unprovoked war of conquest.”
Luther looked hurt and bewildered. Why, they were actually taking a lofty moral attitude toward him, instead of defending their own position. He said something, rather weakly, about what the Federation government would say.
“I’d hate to listen to what they’d say if we deserted Ptosphes, under the circumstances,” Fitzurse told him.
There was a lot more of it, mostly repetitious, with Luther’s position getting steadily weaker. In the end, Stellar Explorations, Ltd., voted to authorize Roger Barron and Reginald Fitzurse to offer Prince Ptosphes of Hostigos a bilateral offensive and defensive alliance.
“He was very happy to accept,” Barron reported, the next afternoon. “There will be a meeting with the Council of Hostigos this evening to ratify the treaty. That is a pure formality; Ptosphes is really absolute ruler here. Now here’s the situation. . .”
He showed them, on the map, the Hostigos-Nostor boundary, along the two small rivers that joined to form the Darro, and explained how the castle that guarded Dombra Pass had passed, almost a century before, to Nostor by betrayal.
“There’s been raiding and barn-burning and cattle-rustling on both sides ever since; that’s accepted. But lately, some outsider has made a deal with Gormoth to furnish him with money and supplies and mercenaries and guarantee the permissive support or at least the non-interference of King Kaiphranos, in return for concessions after the conquest. This outsider, Styphon, is to get this section up here, called the Yellowstone Valley—”
“Did you say Styphon?” Nancy demanded. “Why, Styphon is one of the gods these people worship. Not here in Hostigos, but other places. He’s a fire-god, or sun-god, or something like that.”
“Come to think of it, Roger”, Fitzurse interrupted, “Xentos and Ptosphes never spoke of Styphon, at all. They talked about Styphon’s House; they always used that expression.”
“That’s right; Styphon’s House,” Nancy said. “It’s some kind of a theocracy; all the top priests are in Harphax, but they have temples all over. Tell me; what’s fire-seed?”
“Fire-seed?” Fitzurse echoed. “Why, that’s gunpowder.”
“But they get it from the priests of Styphon. I thought it was some sacramental substance, maybe used in connection with their cremation rites. Are you sure?”
“It’s all I’ve been hearing about. Sore subject, here; they’re almost out of it, and can’t get any more. I’m surprised Harmakros didn’t mention it to you.”
She and Harmakros would have had other things to talk about. Then he swore at his own obtuseness.
“Now it figures!” He swore again. “The whole thing figures. Say these priests accidentally discovered gunpowder, a few centuries ago. . .”
“Bet I know how,” Charley Clifford interrupted. “Bet Styphon was originally a healer-god, like Aesculapius, and the priests were the doctors. Sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal sounds just like the sort of mess early iron-age, try-anything empirics would mix up, and then I suppose they put it on the stove and got a big surprise. After that, Styphon went out of medical practice and into the munition business.”
“Yes. Styphon’s House is the only source of gunpowder; the priests make it, keep it a temple secret, and furnish it to the kings and princes. Firearms and artillery are just good enough that nobody without powder has a chance against anybody with it. That’s why this place is cluttered up with this hodgepodge of petty sovereignties and tributary princes who don’t pay tribute and kings who can’t keep their subjects from fighting among themselves. Styphon’s House wants a lot of rival rulers they can play off against each other. Anybody doesn’t cough up with offerings to the temple, they shut the powder off on him and supply his rivals, and see what happens. I’ll bet the offerings just roll in!”
“Yellowstone Valley,” Arthur Muramoto said. “Can anybody show me where it is? I’ll take a jeep and go look at it right away.”
“Sulphur?”
“Sure; what else?”
“This is old-fashioned, country-style black powder?” Lisette Krull asked. “Well, if Arthur finds sulphur, you can tell Ptosphes that his ammunition worries are over. Little Lisette will make him all the fire-seed he wants, and she’ll eat the first batch if it won’t outshoot Styphon’s Best.”
“Where’ll you get the niter?”
“The first thing I noticed, coming down, was that every farm has a manure-pile bigger than the farmhouse. The ground under every one of them is saturated with KNO3. Anybody want to bet on how soon the priests of Styphon will be out on the sidewalk beating a drum for pennies?”
There was an electric light at the ceiling of Ptosphes’ council-chamber, with its own nuclear-conversion unit, and three more stood on the table in place of the candlesticks. Some of the Council had never seen them before, and blinked in awe.
“Well, tell us all,” Xentos was saying. “To what will we pledge ourselves?”
“We will pledge friendship and brotherhood with one another,” Barron said. “We will pledge to aid one another in war. Prince Ptosphes will guarantee to the Company of Searchers Among the Stars the right to live in peace in his realm, and to buy and sell, and to buy land and erect buildings on it, and places to land our sky-things. The Company of Searchers Among the Stars will pledge themselves to respect the rights of the people of Hostigos, and to maintain the right of the house of Prince Ptosphes to rule in Hostigos, against enemies from without and treasons and rebellions within, and specifically against Prince Gormoth of Nostor and Prince Sarrask of Sask. And we will pledge ourselves to give weapons, as we can, to Prince Ptosphes and his people, and to make weapons and teach them how to make weapons. And we will make fire-seed, and teach the people of Hostigos to make it.”
There was an instant’s silence, and then the room blew up almost like a barrel of fire-seed. Everybody was shouting at once. Chartiphon was brandishing his sword and yelling, “Death to Gormoth! Destruction to Nostor!” Rylla ran around the table and flung her arms about his neck. Nancy Patterson and Harmakros were embracing. And Ptosphes had flung back his head and was laughing like a madman. It was the first time, now that he thought of it, that he had ever heard the Prince of Hostigos laugh. Things must have been pretty grim, up to now. Then there was a general cry of, “Wine! Wine!” Evidently there was only one way to make a treaty really official here.
“The making of fire-seed will take time,” Ptosphes said, after things had quieted down a little. “The people must be taught, and the stuff to make it of must be gathered, and things to make it with prepared, and we know nothing of any of this. The priests of Styphon have kept it a secret since no man can remember.”
Mark one up for Ptosphes; at least he had some faint glow of an idea of production problems.
“Well, I know what has to be done,” Lisette said, “and I know what we don’t have to do it with. I’ll have to organize the niter production, first of all. How about you, Lourenço? How soon do you think you can get the mill ready?”
Narvaes estimated a week, doubled that, and then said: “That’s for about fifty pounds a day. That can be increased gradually, after we get workers trained.”
Arthur Muramoto was even less optimistic about sulphur production; he gave it a month, to be on the safe side.
“But we can’t wait that long,” Ptosphes objected. “Gormoth will learn of what we’re doing, and he’ll be across the mountains before we’re ready for him.”
“Don’t let him find out,” Fitzurse said. “Seal your frontiers. Haven’t you done that already?”
Ptosphes wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. Fitzurse told him.
“Cavalry patrols guarding every road and trail out of Hostigos; let anybody in, but let nobody out. How about this Sarrask of Sask, by the way?”
Ptosphes used some words that hadn’t come up yet in the language-learning. Xentos said:
“He will attack as soon as he hears that Gormoth’s army is across the rivers, but not before. At least, I don’t think he will.”
“Then we’ll take care of him. But this Tarr-Dombra, the castle at the pass; that will have to come first. That’s the key to the whole situation.”
“Man, do you know about Tarr-Dombra?” Chartiphon cried. “Tarr-Dombra has never been taken. We would have it today, if it hadn’t been sold to Gormoth’s grandfather by Him Whom Phadrigos Slew.”
“Father,” Harmakros said reprovingly. “Tarr-Dombra has never been attacked with sky-things.”
“That’s right,” Fitzurse said. “Give me a hundred men and a week to train them and the first cloudy night we’ll take it, from the top down.”
“Harmakros, pick your best hundred men,” Chartiphon told his son. “Men able to learn from those wiser than they are, if you have that many. The Terran war-captain Reginald will teach them a new way to take castles.”
“We ought to have a good fifth column, both in Nostor and Sask,” he said, and then had to explain what that was.
Ptosphes seemed to question the propriety of such a way of making war. Xentos had no such scruples.
“Styphon’s House is established in both,” he said, “and in both, the priests of Dralm are ill-pleased, because the people have no more offerings for them, after Gormoth and Sarrask make them give offerings to Styphon’s House. They look to me for advice. I will send word to them.”
“We’ll airdrop agents outside both Nostor and Sask cities, with radios. You can give them contacts, people you trust. Then they can gather those who have been wronged or bear any grudge against the prince, and the can gather news for us, and spread tales, and get people to speak and act against Styphon’s House.”
For ten days, Karl Zahanov, on the ship, reported unvaryingly fair weather over the north-western part of the continent. Fitzurse and Dave MacDonald took charge of the commando training, and at all hours men in black with long pistols and sawed-off muskets and short pikemen’s swords were swarming out of air-lorries onto the battlements of Tarr-Hostigos. Arthur Muramoto had a gang of workmen up Yellowstone Valley; Luther Smith and Lourenço Narvaes and Charley Clifford took over a grist-mill and began converting it for mixing and grinding powder. Lisette Krull, with anybody she could press into service, began organizing niter production. There already existed a small charcoal-burning industry.
There was a shortage of everything, particularly skilled help. In the town of Hostigos, only three or four pot-tinkers knew anything at all about working sheet-metal, and one of these had to be dragged to a chopping-block and threatened with instant beheadment before he consented even to try to make evaporating pans for the sulphur refinery. There was also trouble with the peasants about the manure-piles.
Barron, Fitzurse and Almagro formed a general staff, along with Ptosphes, Chartiphon and Xentos. The latter was also busy fomenting treasons and plots among his coreligionists in Nostor and Sask by radio, and the three Terran members usually found themselves called away to show some Freyan mechanic how to use a monkey-wrench, or to land a spy outside one of the enemy capitals, or jockey a landing-craft to and from the ship. Barron had taught Rylla to fly an aircar, and Nancy had given Harmakros a few flying lessons; outside of them, all the air-transport had to be flown by Terrans, and when they were doing that, they couldn’t be doing anything else. Nobody got much sleep. Everybody wished that he or she had been born quintuplets.
Along with everything else, he managed to find time to learn everything that Xentos or anybody else at Tarr-Hostigos knew about the operations of Styphon’s House. One item of information intrigued him. Wherever there was a temple, there was always, nearby, a large farm, enclosed with high and impenetrable thorn hedges, to which a great deal of manure was hauled, and also bags of sulphur said to be used in religious ceremonies. He flew by night to take infrared photographs of the ones both at Nostor and at Sask.
Then, on the evening of the ninth day, everybody decided that the age of miracles had not yet ended. Charley Clifford, who had surprised nobody more than himself by developing a talent for the work, reported that the powder-mill was in production, to the extent of fifteen pounds. A charge of it drove one of the big two-ounce musket-balls an inch and a half deeper into a block of wood than an equal charge of Styphon’s Best, and fouled the bore less.
It was decided to take time out for a feast the next evening. It had been a week since the last one, and feasts were important to Freyan morale. Chartiphon and Xentos wanted to open it by firing one of the bombards with the new powder, until they learned that the production being celebrated would be equal to about one-quarter charge for one of them. They finally settled on Rylla firing a musket down the banquet-table at a dummy robed in black and red like a priest of Styphon. That last was gratifying; Hostigos had come to recognize its real enemy.
