Part 18 (1/2)
The ufft protested, complainingly, ”It's all very well for you to say thanks after you've scared a person.”
Link moved forward, and the ufft fled. But Link's intentions were not offensive. He was simply following instructions. He moved doggedly down the hallway. It was carpeted. But the carpet was worn and frayed, though once it had been luxurious. He noted that the plastering was the work of a less than skilled workman.
He came to a corner in the hallway wall. A flight of steps went downward, to the left. He went down them. He heard voices. One of them had the quality of an ufft's speech.
”Now, we can do it. The fee will be five thousand beers.”
Thistlethwaite sounded enraged.
”Outrageous! Robbery! One thousand bottles!”
”Business is business,” said the other voice. ”Four. After all, you're a human!”
Link's foot made a sc.r.a.ping sound on the floor. There was an instant scuffling and low-voiced whispers and mutterings of alarm. Link went toward the sound and came to a place where a wick burned in a dish of oil. The light played upon an oversized cage of four-by-four timbers elaborately lashed together with rope. Inside the cage, Thistlethwaite glared toward the sound of the interruption.
Beyond the cage there was a very neat pile of vision-receivers, all seemingly new and every one dusty.
The combination of unused vision-receivers and a wick floating in a disk of oil for light was startling. The light was primitive and smoky. The vision-sets were not. But the light worked and the vision-sets didn't.
Evidently. There were electric-light panels. But they wouldn't work either, or the oil lamp would not exist.
Thistlethwaite didn't see Link, as yet.
”You'd better tell your boss,” rasped Thistlethwaite to the sound that was Link, ”that if he ever expects to do any business with Old Man Addison he'd better let me loose and give me back my clothes and-”
He stopped short. He and Link could see each other now. Thistlethwaite was bare and hairy and caged.
At sight of Link he uttered a bellow of rage through the heavy wooden bars.
”You!” he roared. ”What' you doin' here? I told you to keep s.h.i.+p! You go back there! You want the s.h.i.+p to be claimed as jetsam, an abandoned s.h.i.+p with no representative of the owner on board? You get there! Lock y'self in! You stay on board till I finish my business dealin' and come an' tell you what to do next!”
”There's someone in charge,” said Link mildly. ”One of Harl's retainers is acting as watchman. For me.
There've been developments since then, but that's that about the s.h.i.+p. I've got a message for you from Harl.”
Thistlethwaite sputtered naughty words in naughtier combinations.
”It seems,” said Link, ”that to offer to pay a Householder for something is insult amounting to a crime.
That's what you're to be hung for. Offering to pay a Householder's sister for something is a worse crime.
It appears that doing business, except with uffts, is considered disgraceful. I don't see how they make it work, but there you are. If you'll apologize, I think there's a chance.”
Thistlethwaite cried out, furiously, ”How can you do business without doin' business? You go tell him-”
”I'd like to get you off,” said Link mildly. ”I'm supposed to be hanged, too. But if I get you a pardon I might get one for myself as aparticept noncriminus. So-”
He heard faint sounds. He said, ”If you've a better way of getting out of being hanged than apologizing, I'd like to join you. I have an idea that there are persons of larger views than . . . ah . . . the humans on Sord Three. I refer to that brilliantly intellectual race, the uffts. With their cooperation-”
He definitely heard faint sounds. There had been voices before he arrived at Thistlethwaite's cage. He waited hopefully.
”Look here!” snapped Thistlethwaite, ”I'm the senior partner in this business! You signed a contract leavin' all decisions to me an' you doin' only astrogatin'! You leave this kinda business to me! I'll tend to it!”
There was a slight sc.r.a.ping noise. An ufft came out from behind the pile of vision-sets. Other uffts appeared from other places. The first ufft said, ”You said you are to be hanged. Would you be interested in a deal with us? We can do all sorts of jail deliveries, strikes, sabotage, spying and intelligence work, and we specialize in political demonstrations.” The ufft grew enthusiastic. ”How about a public demonstration against hanging visitors from other worlds? Mobs shouting in the streets! Pickets around the Householder's home! Chanted slogans! Marching students! And demonstrators lying on the ground and daring men to ride unicorns over them! We can-”
”Can you guarantee results?” asked Link politely.
”It'll be known all over the planet!” said the ufft proudly. ”Public opinion will be mobilized! There'll probably be sympathetic demonstrations at other Households. There'll be indignation, meetings! There'll be pet.i.tions! There'll be-”
”But what,” asked Link as politely as before, ”just what will be the actual physical result? Will Thistlethwaite be released? And I'm supposed to be hanged too. Will I be pardoned? What will Harl actually do in response to all these demonstrations?”
”His name will go down in history as among the most despicable of all tyrants who tried to keep us uffts in bondage!”
”Not in human histories,” said Link. ”Not in histories written by men! Actually, Harl will go his placid way and hang Thistlethwaite and me. And I hate to say it, but our ghosts won't get the least bit of comfort out of even the most violent of public reactions after the event.”
The ufft made no reply.
”I have a thought,” said Link. ”Everybody has a weakness. You have yours, Harl has his, I have mine.
Hart's is that he is h.e.l.l on manners. Fix things so he'll be unmannerly if he doesn't pardon both of us, and he'll be like putty. If Thistlethwaite apologizes elaborately enough, pleading ignorance of the local customs-”
Thistlethwaite protested bitterly, ”Apologize for a straight business proposal? A sound business transaction? I offered to pay him liberal-”
”Exactly the point,” said Link. ”Exactly!”
”Mobs in the streets, shouting to shame him,” said the first ufft, enthusiastically. ”Pickets around his house, chanting slogans! Uffts lying in the streets, daring men to ride over them.”
”No,” said Link patiently. ”Thistlethwaite apologizes. He didn't know the local customs. He asks Harl to forgive him and permit him to make a guest-gift of the clothes and the stun rifle Harl has already taken.
No expense there! Then he asks Harl to instruct me in local etiquette so he can observe it in future contacts with Harl, whom he hopes to make his guide, mentor, friend, and most intimate companion when he has made himself worthy of Harl's friends.h.i.+p.”
”I won't do it!” raged Thistlethwaite ferociously. ”I won't do it! I'm goin' to run this in a businesslike way!
That ain't business!”
”It's sense,” observed Link.
”You're fired!” bellowed Thistlethwaite. ”You're fired! You ain't a junior partner any more! Your contract with me says I can heave you out any time I want! You're heaved! I'm runnin' this my way!”
Link looked at him earnestly, but the little man glared furiously at him. Link shrugged and went away. He returned to the garden, where Harl paced up and down and up and down, and where his sister again watered a row of not over-prosperous plants.
”Thistlethwaite,” said Link untruthfully, ”had an unhappy childhood, practically surrounded by people with the manners, morals, and many of the customs of uffts. It warped his whole personality. He is aware that he ought to apologize for having insulted you. But he's ashamed. He feels that he should be punished.
Also he feels that he should make reparation. At the moment he is struggling between a death-wish and an inferiority complex. He will offer no more insults unless the struggle goes the wrong way.”
Harl scowled.