The Time Traveler's Almanac (137 page)

Rolling forward, they passed the circle of Waitabits who were now sitting cross-legged on the turf and staring at a Keen chart which Nolan was exhibiting with an air of complete frustration. Nearby, Hoffnagle was masticating his nails while trying to decide how much of the lesson was being absorbed and how much missed. Not one of this bunch showed the slightest surprise when the car charged down the steep bluff and clattered by them.

With jerks and heaves the car crossed the lines behind the stalled train, gained the road. Here the surface proved excellent, the running smooth.

The artery would have done justice to a Terran racing-track. Before they had gone five miles they encountered an alien using it for exactly that.

This one half-sat, half-reclined in a long, narrow, low-slung single-seater that had “hot-rod” written all over it. He came along like a maniac, face strained, eyes popping, hands clinging firmly to the wheel. According to the photoelectric telltale on the patrol wagon’s instrument board he roared past them at fifty-two and a quarter miles per hour. Since the speedometer on the same board recorded precisely fifty, it meant that the other was going all out at a harrowing two and a quarter.

Twisting his head to gaze through the rear window, Pascoe said, “As a sociologist I’ll tell you something authoritatively; some of this crowd are downright reckless. If that lunatic is headed for the city now about thirty miles away he’ll make it in as little as twelve hours.” Then he frowned, became serious as he added, “Seeing that their reactions are in keeping with their motions, one being as tedious as the other, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have traffic problems comparable with those of any other world.”

Nobody got a chance to comment on that. The entire eight bowed in unison as the brakes went on. They were entering the suburbs with pedestrians, cars and trolleys littering the streets. After that it was strictly bottom-gear work; the driver had to learn a completely new technique and it wasn’t easy.

Crimson-faced people in the same sexless attire ambled across the roads in a manner suggesting that for two pins they’d lie down and go to sleep. Some moved faster than others but the most nimble ones among the lot were an obstacle for an inordinate while. Not one halted and gaped at the invading vehicle as it trundled by, but most of them stopped and took on a baffled expression by the time they’d been left a mile behind.

To Leigh and his companions there was a strong temptation to correlate slowness with stupidity. They resisted it. Evidence to the contrary was strong enough not to be denied.

The streets were level, straight and well-made, complete with sidewalks, gulleys and drains. No buildings rose higher than sixty feet but all were solidly built and far from primitive. Cars were not numerous by Terran standards but had the appearance of engineering jobs of no mean order.

The street-trolleys were small, sun-powered, languidly efficient and bore two dozen passengers apiece.

For a few minutes they halted near a building in course of construction, maintained attention upon a worker laying a brick, estimated that the job required twenty minutes. Three bricks per hour.

Doing some fast figuring, Leigh said, “Taking their days and nights as six months apiece and assuming they put in the equivalent of an eight-hour day, that fellow is laying something over a thousand bricks per hour.” He pursed his lips, gave a brief whistle. “I know of no life form capable of building half as fast. Even on Earth it takes a robot to equal it.”

The others considered that aspect of the matter in silence. The patrol wagon moved on, reached a square in which was a civic car-park containing some forty machines. The sight was irresistible. Driving straight in past two uniformed attendants they lined their vehicle neatly at the end of a row. The attendants’ eyeballs started edging around.

Leigh spoke to the driver, radio man and gunner. “You three stay here. If anyone interferes, pick him up, put him down a hundred yards away and leave him to try all over again. If they show signs of getting organized to blow you sky-high, just move the wagon to the other end of the park. When they catch you up, move back here.”

“Where are you going?” inquired Harding.

“Over there.” He pointed toward an official-looking building. “To save time I’d like you, your men and Pascoe to try the other places. Take one apiece, go inside, see if you can learn anything worth picking up.” He glanced at his watch. “Be back promptly at three. No dallying. The laggard will be left to take a nine-mile walk.”

Starting off, he found an attendant twenty yards away and moving toward him with owl-eyes wide. Going boldly up to him, he took the book of tickets from an unresisting hand, tore one off, pressed the book back into crimson fingers, added a silver button by way of payment and passed on. He derived amused satisfaction from that honest gesture. By the time he’d crossed the square and entered the building the recipient had got around to examining the button.

At three they returned to find chaos in the square and no sign of the patrol wagon in the park. A series of brief wails on its siren drew them to a side street where it was waiting by the kerb.

“Slow as they may be, they can get places given long enough,” said the driver. “They started creeping around us in such numbers that we looked like being hemmed in for keeps. We wouldn’t have been able to get out without running over fifty of them. I beat it while there was still a gap to drive through.” He pointed through the windshield. “Now they’re making for here. The tortoise chasing the hare.”

One of Harding’s men, a grizzled veteran of several space-campaigns, remarked, “It’s easier to cope when you’re up against guppies that are hostile and fighting mad. You just shoot your way out.” He grunted a few times. “Here, if you sit around too long you’ve got to let yourself be trapped or else run over them in cold blood. That’s not my idea of how to do things.” Another grunt. “Hell of a planet. The fellow who found it ought to be made to live here.”

“Find anything in your building?” Leigh asked him.

“Yes, a dozen cops.”

“What?”

“Cops,” repeated the other. “It was a police station. I could tell because they all had the same uniforms, all carried duralumin bludgeons. And there were faces on the wall with queer printing beneath. I can’t recognize one face from another. They are all alike to me. But something told me those features hadn’t been stuck to the wall to commemorate saintliness.”

“Did they show any antagonism toward you?”

“They didn’t get the chance,” he said with open contempt. “I just kept shifting around looking at things and that had them foxed.”

“My building was a honey,” informed Pascoe. “A telephone exchange.”

Leigh twisted around to stare at him. “So they are supersonic speakers after all?”

“No. They use scanners and three-inch visi-screens. If I’ve looked down one squirming gizzard, I’ve looked down twenty. What’s more, a speaker sometimes removes his palps from the screen and substitutes a sort of slow-motion display of deaf-and-dumb talk with his fingers. I have a vague idea that some of those digital acrobatics represent vitriolic cussing.”

The driver put in nervously, “If we squat here much longer the road will be blocked both ends.”

“Then let’s get out while there’s time.”

“Back to the ship, sir?”

“Not yet. Wander around and see if you can find an industrial area.”

The car rolled forward, went cautiously past a bunch of oncoming pedestrians, avoided the crowded square by trundling down another side street.

Lying back in comfort, Pascoe held his hands together over his stomach and inquired interestedly, “I suppose none of you happened to find himself in a fire station?” Nobody had.

“That’s what I’d give a thousand credits to see,” he said. “A couple of pumps and a hook-and-ladder squad bursting out to deal with a conflagration a mile away. The speed of combustion is no less on this world than on our own. It’s a wonder to me the town hasn’t burned down a dozen times.”

“Perhaps it has,” offered Harding. “Perhaps they’re used to it. You can get accustomed to anything in the long run.”

“In the long run,” agreed Pascoe. “Here it’s long enough to vanish into the mists of time. And it’s anything but a run.”

He glanced at Leigh. “What did you walk into?”

“A public library.”

“That’s the place to dig up information. How much did you get?”

“One item only,” Leigh admitted with reluctance. “Their printed language is ideographic and employs at least three thousand characters.”

“There’s a big help,” said Pascoe, casting an appealing glance heavenward. “Any competent linguist or trained communicator should be able to learn it from them. Put Hoffnagle on the job. He’s the youngest among us and all he needs is a couple of thousand years.”

The radio burped, winked its red eye, and the operator switched it on. Shallom’s voice came through.

“Commodore, an important-looking specimen has just arrived in what he probably thinks of as a racing car. It may be that he’s a bigwig appointed to make contact with us. That’s only our guess but we’re trying to get confirmation of it. I thought you’d like to know.”

“How’s progress with him?”

“No better than with the others. Possibly he’s the smartest boy in college. Nevertheless, Nolan estimates it will take most of a month to convince him that Mary had a little lamb.”

“Well, keep trying. We’ll be returning shortly.” The receiver cut off and Leigh added to the others, “That sounds like the road-hog we passed on the way here.” He nudged the driver, pointed leftward. “That looks like a sizeable factory. Stop outside while I inspect it.”

He entered unopposed, came out after a few minutes, told them, “It’s a combined flour-mill, processing and packaging plant. They’re grinding up a mountain of nut-kernels, probably from surrounding forests. They’ve a pair of big engines down in the basement that beat me. Never seen anything like them. I think I’ll get Bentley to come and look them over. He’s the expert on power supplies.”

“Big place for a mill, isn’t it?” ventured Harding.

“They’re converting the flour into about twenty forms. I took a lick at some of it.”

“What did it taste like?”

“Bill-sticker’s paste.” He nudged the driver again. “There’s another joint.” Then to Harding, “You come with me.”

Five minutes later they returned and said, “Boots, shoes and slippers. And they’re making them fast.”

“Fast?” echoed Pascoe, twitching his eyebrows.

“Faster than they can follow the process themselves. The whole layout is fully automatic and self-arresting if anything goes wrong. Not quite as good as we’ve got on Earth but not so far behind, either.” Leigh sat with pursed lips, musing as he gazed through the windshield. “I’m going back to the ship. You fellows can come for further exploration if you wish.”

None of them registered enthusiasm.

There was a signal waiting on the desk, decoded and typed.

C.O.
Flame
to C.O.
Thunderer.
Atmosphere Pulok analysed good in fact healthy. So instruments insist. Noses say has abominable stench beyond bearing. Should be named Puke. Proceeding Arlington Port
88.137
unless summoned by you. Mallory.

Reading it over Leigh’s shoulder, Pascoe commented, “That Boydell character has a flair for picking ugly ones right out of the sky. Why doesn’t someone choke him to death?”

“Four hundred twenty-one recorded in there,” reminded Leigh, tapping his big chart book. “And about two-thirds of them come under the heading of ugly ones.”

“It would save a lot of grief if the scouts ignored those and reported only the dumps worth having.”

“Grief is the price of progress, you know that.” Leigh hurriedly left his desk, went to the port as something whirred outside. He picked up the phone. “Where’s the ’copter going?”

“Taking Garside and Walterson some place,” replied a voice. “The former wants more bugs and the latter wants rock-samples.”

“All right. Has that film been finished yet?”

“Yes, commodore. It has come out good and clear. Want me to set it up in the projection room?”

“You might as well. I’ll be there right away. Have somebody get to work on the magazine in the patrol wagon. About half of it has been exposed.”

“As you order, sir.”

Summoning the rest of the specialist staff, of whom there were more than sixty, he accompanied them to the projection room, studied the record of Ogilvy’s survey. When it had finished the audience sat in glum silence. Nobody had anything to say. No comment was adequate.

“A nice mess,” griped Pascoe after they had returned to the main cabin.

“In the last one thousand years the human race has become wholly technological. Even the lowest ranking space-marine is considerably a technician, especially by standards of olden times.”

“I know.” Leigh frowned futilely at the wall.

“We are the brains,” Pascoe went on, determining to rub salt into the wounds. “And because we’re the brains we naturally dislike providing the muscle as well. We’re a cut above the mere hewing of wood and drawing of water.”

“You’re telling me nothing.”

Down to telling it anyway, Pascoe continued, “So we’ve planted settlers on umpteen planets. And what sort of settlers are they? Bosses, overseers, boys who inform, advise, point and tell while the less advanced do the doing.”

Leigh offered no remark.

“Suppose Walterson and the others find this lousy world rich in the things we need,” he persisted. “How are we going to get at the stuff short of excavating it ourselves? The Waitabits form a big and probably willing labour force but what’s the use of them if the most rudimentary job gets completed ten, twenty or fifty years hence? Who’s going to settle here and become a beast of burden as the only way of getting things done in jig time?”

“Ogilvy went over a big dam and what looked like a hydroelectric plant,” observed Leigh, thoughtfully. “On Earth the entire project might have cost two years at most. How long it required here is anyone’s guess. Two hundred years perhaps. Or four hundred. Or more.” He tapped fidgety fingers on his desk. “It worries me.”