Part 19 (1/2)

If there can be a device which performs every sort of work a world wants done, then those who first have that instrument are rich beyond the dreams of anything but pride. But pride will make riches a drug upon the market. Men will no longer work, because there is no need for their work. Men will starve because there is no longer any need to provide them with food. There will be no way to earn necessities.

One can only take them. And presently n.o.body will attempt to provide them to be taken.

Thana said interestedly, ”There are stories about the fighting back on Surheil Two before our ancestors ran away. Everybody was trying to kill them because they had dupliers. They had to flee. It seems ridiculous, but they did run away, in s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, and they came here. There were only a few hundreds of them. The uffts made quite a fuss about their setting up Households, but the men had beer and the uffts couldn't make it. They had no hands. So things got straightened out in time. But for a long, long while it was believed that n.o.body from any other world must ever be allowed to land here. I'm glad you landed, though.”

”To be hanged,” said Link.

But he understood the history of Sord Three better than she did. He could imagine the Economic Wars on Surheil Two, after the ancestors of Thana had fled. There were dupliers that weren't taken away by the fugitives. A few. So men fought to possess them, and other men fought to take them away, and ultimately they'd be destroyed by men who couldn't defend them. And then there'd be wholesale murder for food, and brigandage for what sc.r.a.ps were left. And at last civilization would have to start all over again with starving people and unplanted fields for a beginning. But no dupliers.

Here the disaster had taken a different form. While dupliers worked there was no need to learn useful things, such as the mechanical arts, and chemistry, and mineralogy. So such knowledge was forgotten.

The art of weaving would vanish, too, when dupliers could make cloth to any demand. The composition of alloys. Electrical apparatus could not work without rare metals n.o.body knew how to find for the dupliers. So when the original units wore out there was no more electricity. And all cloth grows old and yellow and brittle, so old cloth, duplied, merely meant more old cloth, and alloy steel objects could not be reproduced, but only duplied, without the alloying materials, so there were only soft-iron knives and patched garments. And since the smallest of gardens, with any kind of vegetable matter for raw material, could have its produce duplied without limit, only the smallest of gardens were cultivated. Wherefore Harl's Household was hung with rich drapery which was falling apart, the carpets on its floors were threadbare, and he was proud that his Household had one scrawny apple tree with wormy fruit on it.

Because on Sord Three men were not needed to make things or grow things or do things. And Harl's Household was ready to break apart.

”I begin,” said Link unhappily, ”to agree with Harl. Since Thistlethwaite can't hope to astrogate his s.h.i.+p if I'm hanged, he can't report the state of things without me. So it's probably wise to hang me. On the other hand I couldn't run the s.h.i.+p's engines, so I couldn't take the news if he were hanged. But one or the other of us should be disposed of.”

Thana said sympathetically, ”You feel terrible, don't you? Let's go see Harl. Maybe you'll feel better.

No, wait!” An idea had occurred to her. She surveyed a shelf of elaborately embroidered garments. She picked out one. ”Do you think this is pretty?”

”Very,” said Link forlornly. There hadn't been too many things he'd taken seriously, in his lifetime, but he did know that if dupliers got loose in the galaxy, there'd be no man certain of his life if he hadn't a duplier, nor any man whose life was worth a pebble if he did.

”Fine!” said Thana brightly. ”Come along!”

She picked up a bundle of what looked like ancient, yellowed, cloth sc.r.a.ps, plus a lump of bog-iron.

She led the way into the great hall.

Her brother Harl was there, wearing an expression of patient gloom. There were two retainers, working at something which gradually became clear. A third man rolled in a large wheeled box from somewhere.

It was filled to the brim with a confused ma.s.s of leaves and roots and branches and weeds. It was the mixture uffts had been dragging into the village in a wheeled cart some little while ago. As a mixture, it belonged on a compost heap or on a brush pile to be burned. But instead it was brought into the hall with the incredible, falling-apart, floor-to-ceiling draperies.

There was a stirring. The dais and the canopied chair moved. Together, chair and dais rose ceilingward.

A deep pit was revealed where they had stood. And something rose in the pit, like a freight-elevator. It came plainly into view, and it was a complex metal contrivance with three hoppers on top which were plainly meant to hold things. One of the hoppers contained a damp ma.s.s of greenish powder in a highly irregular mound. One of Harl's retainers began to brush that out into a box for waste. The middle hopper contained a pile of apples, all small, all scrawny, and each with a wormhole next its stem. It contained a bushel or more of lettuce heaped up with the apples. The rest of the hopper was filled with peas.

The third of the hoppers contained an exact duplicate of the contents of the middle hopper. Each leaf of lettuce in the third hopper was a duplicate of one in the middle hopper. Each apple was a duplicate of an apple in the middle hopper. Each pea- ”Pyramid it once more,” said Harl, ”and it'll be enough.”

His retainers piled the contents of the third hopper into the second. They piled the first one high with the contents of the box of vegetable debris. Link knew the theory now. The trash was vegetation. There were the same elements and same compounds in the trash as in apples, lettuce leaves, and peas. The proportions would be different, but the substance would be there. The duplier would take from the trash the materials needed to duplicate the sample edibles.

The same thing could more or less be done with roasts and steaks. Or elaborate embroidery, provided one had a sample for the duplier to work from. There would be left-over raw materials, of course, but a duplier could duplicate anything. Including a duplier.

And that was the thought which was frightening.

Harl said, ”All right.”

The men moved back. The contrivance descended into the pit. The chair of state descended until its dais rested on the floor, covering the pit. Harl said casually, ”How'd you make out, Thana? Does Link know some of the things you were wonderin' about?”

”Most of them,” said Thana confidently. ”Nearly all!”

It was less than an accurate statement, and Link wondered morosely why she made it. But then Harl pressed the b.u.t.ton. The chair of state rose. The deep pit was revealed. The metal contrivance rose to floor-level. The pile of a.s.sorted fragments in the first hopper had practically vanished. The fruit and lettuce and peas in the second hopper were unchanged. The third hopper was full of an exact duplicate of the a.s.sortment of edibles in the middle one.

”We don't need any more,” observed Harl. ”Just clean up and-”

”Wait!” said Thana. ”I was showing Link things, and he admired this s.h.i.+rt.”

She unfolded the garment she'd asked Link's opinion on. It was a s.h.i.+rt. It was lavishly embroidered.

Link opened his mouth, but Harl said indulgently, ”All right.”

Thana put the s.h.i.+rt in the middle-sample-hopper. Then she said, ”He told me the knife you've got is the prettiest he's seen, too!”

Harl said, ”Sput!” His tone was not entirely pleased. Then he said, ”I got to have manners, huh?”

”Of course,” said Thana.

With a grimace, Harl unbuckled his belt and handed the belt and knife to Thana. She put them into the middle hopper. Then she put bog-iron, wood, and the sc.r.a.ps of cloth from the treasury room into the raw materials place. She nodded confidently to her brother.

He pressed something, the chair of state sank down, following the duplier mechanism, the room looked normal for a moment, and then the chair of state rose up, the pit appeared, and then the duplier.

There was much less bog-iron in the materials hopper. There was some sand on the hopper bottom. The embroidered s.h.i.+rt and the knife and belt were, as they'd been before, in the middle hopper. Exact duplicates of both knife and s.h.i.+rt were in the third hopper.

Thana handed her brother his knife. She took out and put aside the sample garment. She spread out its duplicate and said to Link, ”Do put it on! Please!”

Harl watched impatiently, as Link took off his own s.h.i.+rt and donned the embroidered one. He was embarra.s.sed by his own decorative appearance in the new apparel. Thana picked up the s.h.i.+rt he'd taken off.

”Look! This is unduplied, Harl!” she said with extravagant admiration. ”Have you ever seen anything so wonderful?”

”Sput!” said Harl angrily. ”What you tryin' to do?”

”I'm saying that this is a wonderful s.h.i.+rt,” said Thana, beaming. ”It isn't duplied. It's the nicest, newest s.h.i.+rt I've ever seen. Don't you think so? I dare you to lie and still pretend you've manners!”

Harl said, ”Sput!” again, and then, ”All right,” he admitted peevishly. ”It's true. I never saw a new, unduplied s.h.i.+rt before. It's a nice s.h.i.+rt.”

Thana turned triumphantly to Link. He didn't see any reason for triumph. But she waited, and waited.

Harl glared at him. Suddenly, Link understood. He might be scheduled to hang, but he was expected to be mannerly.

”The s.h.i.+rt is yours,” he said dourly to Harl. ”It's a gift.”

Harl hesitated for what seemed a long time. Then, ”Thanks,” he said reluctantly. ”It's a right nice guest-gift. I appreciate it.”

Thana looked radiant. She sent one of the retainers, standing by, for all the cloth on the treasury room shelves. She fairly glowed with enthusiasm. She put Link's former s.h.i.+rt in the sample hopper and filled another with sc.r.a.ps, and sent the duplier down. It came up and there were two s.h.i.+rts. It went down again with two s.h.i.+rts in the sample hopper. When it came up there were four. The chair of state and the duplier went down and up and down and up and down and up. When the last morsel of raw material was exhausted, there were one hundred twenty-seven duplicates of Link's own s.h.i.+rt, besides the original s.h.i.+rt itself.

”I guess that'll do,” said Harl, ungraciously. ”I'll be sendin' gifts to all my friends, and all my own fellas will have new s.h.i.+rts, an' their wives'll be takin' 'em apart to make dresses and sheets and stuff.” He nodded to Link. ”I appreciate that s.h.i.+rt a lot, Link. Thanks.”

He went away, and Link stirred stiffly. He'd watched the entire process. Objects could be duplicated without labor or skill or industry. He'd observed what his mind told him was the doom of human civilization unless he or 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 s.h.i.+p must land on Sord Three. It might be by accident. But some day another s.h.i.+p would come.

And then this same intolerable situation would exist again.