Fantastic Universe/Volume 08/Number 3/A Matter of Culture
a
matter
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culture
- Why did Sleth Forander want everything in the ship turned absolutely backwards?
Next to a funeral parlor, an idle assembly line is probably the most depressing sight in the world. At least to a production man. Ordinarily, Mack Wilde, Factory Manager of Wilkinson Spacecraft, avoided a route that would take him past the lines that hadn't budged in over three months. But now he almost ran past them, with a smile on his face, as he went down the gallery that led from the front office to the Chief Engineer's bailiwick.
George Mahoney looked up from his idle sketching and leaned on the drawing board with his elbows while the somewhat portly Mack regained his breath.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "The phone company take out all our lines and the office boys get laid off?" It had been days since he'd known the Factory Manager to leave his office.
"I'll overlook that," said Mack as he caught a final deep breath that restored him fairly close to normal. "In fact I'll overlook most anything except your continued warming that stool. We've got work to do, boy!"
"What? Somebody order one Wilkinson Tiger?"
Mack leaned back against a drafting table along the opposite wall and tapped his fingers together lightly. "One hundred H-62 cruisers." He said it almost in a whisper so that it had the effect of prolonging George's reaction.
George failed to respond. His attention returned to the drawing as if Mack were not there.
The Factory Manager crossed the space between them and slapped his heavy palm on the drawing board. "You hear what I said? One hundred H-62's!"
"Yeah, I heard," said George. "Now I'll tell mine if you're ready. My Uncle Duffy wants nineteen Super-C cargo wagons to haul goose feathers from his farm out Harlamanian way."
Mack's face darkened as he rounded the board and grasped the engineer's arm. He jerked roughly. "This is on the level, George! I was just in the Old Man's office and he had a confirmation. The technical modification consultant is already here. He'll be in the plant this afternoon!"
George turned without expression on his face. "Who?" he said.
"Somebody named Sleth Forander, from Ragalian IX. Never heard of them before, but we checked their Galactic Import License. It's clean. And they'll take the standard H-62 with customary cultural modifications. This is big, George. It'll put us on our feet and in a position to level with Monarch and Apex for an equivalent subsidy. This is what we've been dreaming about for six long, sad years. And now we've got it! One hundred H-62's!"
"Why didn't Monarch or Apex get it?"
"Who knows? Who cares? Maybe the Ragalians like us better. They said they'd seen our Model H-62 and it was exactly what they wanted—with customary modifications, of course."
"There's a reason," said George slowly. "If this actually is on the level, there has to be a reason. An independent like Wilkinson Spacecraft just doesn't take orders that size out from under the noses of the government-subsidized heavies. Not unless there's a reason!"
"Are you going to quibble over that?" Mack said, half-angrily. "Maybe Monarch and Apex are too busy to handle it."
"They know it would set us up to really compete with them instead of being confined to the small private ship and sports cruiser business."
"Well, whatever the reason, we've got the deal. I've already alerted my production team. Get the lead out and start going over those H-62 prints so you can throw in the modifications without keeping my men standing around on one foot for two weeks!"
George shook his head slowly. "No."
"What do you mean 'no'? You putting in your resignation?"
"I mean no, I'm going down to the library and check up on the Ragalians, before we get sucked into something that'll clean the shirts the rest of the way off our backs. If this were any good we'd at least have had to fight Monarch and Apex for it. I've got a feeling that before this is over we'll wish Monarch or Apex did have the job!"
There was nothing to support his pessimism, however, in the data available from the central library. He studied the tapes for three hours and discovered their potential customers lived twenty seven light years away. They were peaceful—they had to be to get a license to import spacecraft!—and they were modest in technical accomplishments, hardly a step away from the agrarian level. But they were highly intelligent.
Physically, they were one of the weirdest that George Mahoney had ever encountered, but this was to be taken in stride. That's why cultural modification of ships was standard practice in foreign sales. Controls had to be specially designed for operation of the buyers. Tools had to be properly designed so that they could maintain their own vessels. Atmosphere mechanisms had to be installed to accommodate their environmental requirements, and physical size of the accommodations had to be adjusted, although, of course, there were limits to which this could be done.
As he scanned this data, George mentally pictured the modifications necessary to accommodate the Ragalians. Everything seemed well within the limits of tolerability. No special problems would be encountered as far as he could see.
But he still didn't like the set-up. There had to be a reason why Wilkinson was getting the deal, and not the big outfits who were subsidized to assist in development of long-range interstellar communication. Wilkinson had the benefit of the Monarch and Apex patents, but that still was not enough to offset the financial advantage enjoyed by the bigger companies.
It was true that this one order, if successfully completed, would put Wilkinson on a competitive basis, but George felt sure that their rivals were sure that the order would not be completed. Why, remained to be seen.
He knew he was missing the initial modification conference. He purposely stayed away long enough that he would miss it. There was never anything accomplished at the first meeting except a lot of meaningless introductory chit-chat about "How's the weather in March on Hemoglobin VI?" and "Our kids mature at sixteen percent of life expectancy; yours must be terribly retarded, old man."
Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close to it.
When he got back to the office. however, red tab alarms were ringing all over the place for him.
His secretary, Sylvia, was definitely pale as he showed up just as she was putting down the phone. She eyed him seriously. "I don't know whether it would be better for you to leave for Mars on the night express—or go up to the Old Man's office and face it. The choice is up to you."
He grinned. "I'll see the Old Man. I slept out one night the first time I was on Mars. Something must be up," he added on a note of question.
"Brother—is something up—!" Sylvia groaned.
The Old Man was Hugh Wilkinson, President and founder of Wilkinson Spacecraft. It was mostly personal affection for Hugh that kept the majority of technical personnel at the plant. They could have made half again as much in one of the bigger shops.
But Hugh Wilkinson was the original spacemen's space man. He'd barnstormed and fought his way through half the galaxy by the time he was fifty, traveling most of the time in spit-and-baling-wire ships that nobody expected to reach the next port. He almost literally built his ships as he went, and hundreds of his inventions now made space travel infinitely safer and more efficient in everything from sports jallopies to luxury spacetime cruisers.
But he'd fought for independence all his life, and it was independence he intended to have, even though it now meant bucking the biggest spaceship construction interests in the Galaxy or on Earth. He believed he knew how to build a better spaceship than any of them, and he still had a few tricks up his sleeve to prove it.
George stopped a moment at the door marked President, while he grinned at Hugh's secretary. She was pale, too, as Sylvia had been. Must really have been some fireworks going on around the place, he thought. But from the interior of the office, there was absolute silence now.
He pressed the knob and walked in.
The only two men in the room were Hugh, and Mark Wilde. Mark was slumped low in the conference chair in the far corner of the room. Hugh was seated behind his desk, still straight, but chin lowered as he looked fiercely from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"I heard you were looking for me," George said tentatively.
Neither man answered. The silence continued. He closed the door quietly and remained standing. "I didn't know you were having an hour of meditation," he said finally. "I'll be in the office when you want me." He moved to open the door again.
"Sit down!" Hugh Wilkinson roared.
Smiling a little forcedly, George complied. "Where were you when you should have been here this afternoon?" Hugh demanded.
"Working on the modification problems of the H-62's we're going to sell the Ragalians."
"That was nice," Hugh said bitingly. "So very thoughtful of you. Only it so happens that we aren't going to sell the Ragalians any H-62's!"
George kept his silence for a moment. He'd known it all along. The deal was too good to hope for. "What happened?" he said finally. "Where was the gimmick?"
"They don't want the H-62 at all!" Hugh thundered. "They want a whole new ship! That's what we needed you for this afternoon, to try to convince Sleth Forander of that."
"I don't understand."
"He insists they want an H-62—with modifications. But the modifications consist chiefly of removing the control room from the nose to the very bottom keel plate!"
"The what—?"
"You heard me. He wants the control room moved from the nose to the tail."
"I thought that's what you said!"
Mark spoke up from his corner for the first time. "It's silly! It's absolutely the silliest, most idiotic thing I ever heard of! Controls, in the rear—"
"It's pretty nutty," George said, "but really no worse than some of the others we've done. We could rig up a system of remotes and servos to some kind of auxiliary control room down in the hull somewhere. After all, the customer is right—especially when he has to drive the rig!"
"I evidently haven't made it clear to you," the President said with patience in his voice as if talking with a little child. "Sleth Forander demands the control room be mounted directly on the keel plate. To him, that obviously puts all the rest of the works—engines, cargo space, living quarters—in the upper part of the vessel."
"He just wants an ordinary ship that flies backwards!" Mark cried in exasperation.
"I just can't quite believe you've understood the problem completely," said George seriously. "It doesn't make sense that they'd want everything in the ship turned absolutely backwards."
"We did our best," said Hugh Wilkinson. "We were terribly upset by the absence of the magnificent mind of our Chief Engineer during this afternoon's meeting!"
George grinned suddenly and stood up. "Come off it!" he said. He strode to the window and looked down at the yard. "I had the feeling in the beginning that we didn't have a chance on this contract, but this is so goofy that my confidence is returning. I am sorry I wasn't here, but you must have arranged further meetings. You didn't cut off negotiations completely?"
"No—Sleth Forander will be back. And when he does, we've got to have something to tell him!" Hugh leaned forward and bashed his fist against the desk top. "That means you. Can we build him the the kind of ship he wants out of an H-62? I told him we couldn't. He says Monarch and Apex told him the same thing regarding their similar models."
"So that's why we got a bid for the job!" George exclaimed. "I knew it had to be something like that!"
"You haven't answered my question."
George turned from the window. "Let's not give an answer just yet. 'We'd have to see-saw it back and forth with the cost-accounting department to determine whether a whole new ship or a modified 62 would be cheaper. I'd say that either way it would double the cost."
"He says Monarch or Apex would do it for one point sixtenths."
"They could—" George said bitterly.
"But Sleth Forander isn't authorized to pay more than our standard H-62 price."
Mark stirred again. "Then he'd better take his pretty little import license to some other galaxy! He's not going to do business here. What a chance it would have been to get on our feet and stand up to Monarch and Apex!"
"Now wait a minute—" George snapped each word with slow, brittle emphasis. "Everybody was so steamed up about this being our royal chance to get out of the hole and trying to convince me that it was so. All right, I got convinced. Just because we run into a little difficulty on modifications is no reason for junking the whole deal. Let's try to salvage it."
For the first time, Hugh Wilkinson smiled. His face beamed. "That's the kind of talk I like to hear! Now if I had a Factory Manager that was capable of looking on the bright side of things once in a while—"
Mark spread his palms and groaned.
"What ideas have you got as to how we can do this salvaging?" Hugh asked George.
"I haven't any," said George. "I want to see Sleth Forander. Out in space. I want to know just why he has to have his ships upside down and backwards!"
The first meeting with the foreign emissary produced little results for George. He didn't even get to see much of Sleth Forander, packaged, as the latter was, in a hermetically sealed can of blueish vapor. But from pictures on the library tape he knew what the creatures looked like.
The Ragalians were strictly from nightmares. They had a kind of pear-shaped torso, big end on top. A dozen fin-like appendages on the bottom served as feet. When they were in atmosphere suits, however, they just rolled about on little wheels, governed by motors inside.
For getting over obstacles they used the four powerful and completely flexible appendages on the upper part of their bodies, which were provided with fitted sleeves in the suits.
Their heads, George considered, were the most difficult parts of their anatomies to assess. The Ragalians suffered from the basic physical defect of homo sapiens: too many soft parts exposed to the environment. But in them it was carried to the extreme.
Their brains were among those soft parts, and totally lacked any kind of protective covering such as a skull. They were as exposed as the human eye.
They formed a wide, thick bump on the back of the upper torso. Sensory equipment in the form of two pairs of eyes, assorted olfactory surfaces, and hearing orifices were mounted on very stubby stalks projecting from the outer circumference of the brain boundary. They weren't long enough to project around the bulk of the torso, so that the creatures had the habit of turning from side to side almost constantly to see or hear or smell what was going on in front of them.
George approached the subject of the modification warily during their talks, trying to get at the purpose for putting the control room at the base of the ship, where only the engines rightfully belonged.
He sensed the contempt in the Ragalian's voice even through the suit and its attached translator. "Earth boy enormous fool," said Sleth Forander, "putting head on top; rock come along, head all gone."
"It doesn't make much difference out in space," said George, "whether you get your head or your bottom knocked off. Anything big enough to do one or the other is going to have the same effect"
"Put head in bottom, like so!" He jabbed a metal sleeved tentacle at the drawing he'd brought to show the changes his people demanded before purchase of the vessels.
"How do you know a rock isn't just as likely to hit there as on the other end of the ship.^" George asked.
"Rock always hit on head," Sleth Forander said.
"But we can absolutely prove that the forward end of the ship is no more vulnerable than any other portion—and that the effect of a meteor collision is just as dangerous at one end as the other."
"Rock hit forward end; men not killed if in bottom."
"They are if the motors are forward, and are knocked out by the collision," said George. "It may take a little longer, but you're still a dead duck."
"Live duck," insisted the Ragalian.
This was getting nowhere, and George gave it up. "We can provide the ship you want," he said, "and I think we can come to an agreement on the price." He saw Hugh's eyebrows lift slightly at this, but he continued on. "I want to be absolutely sure, however, that by the time we start construction there will be no misunderstanding between us regarding your needs—as I feel there is at the present time. To help clear this up I'd like to have you accompany us on a cruise aboard an H-62 for a few days, provided that is satisfactory to you."
"Live in bottom, o.k." the Ragalian technician said.
George nodded. "Right. We'll fix you a bunk right down on the floor next to the engine room!"
Mark criticized the whole procedure as a waste of time. He'd written off all hope of coming to terms with the Ragalians and their ridiculous specifications. 'The time could be better spent hunting new business. Hugh was pretty much of the same opinion, but he agreed to see through any salvage effort George wanted to make.
"We know why Monarch and Apex gave the job up," the Chief Engineer pointed out. "So we're not in the dark on that score. Now, if we can find a way either to make a suitable modification, or get Sleth Forander to back down on his specifications, we're in the chips! We've got nothing to lose by trying!"
"Well, how long is this trip going to take?" Mark Wilde wanted to know. "Sleth Forander is chomping at the bit. The Ragalians seemed to have gotten the idea that Earthmen are capable of pulling rabbits out of any old hat. They demand completion of this deal in eight months."
George stared. "With modifications? They're crazy!"
"Maybe we'd better just tell him to take his license and shop for spaceships elsewhere then, huh?"
"No—we could give him standard ships with the normal amount of modification in that time. There's something so completely smelly about this demand for modifications, that I want to track it down before throwing in the sponge. It just isn't rational."
"What do you want to do about it?" Hugh asked.
"Rig a special ship and take him out as I told him. Put in thermocouples to train on him automatically by electroencephalographic response. Remote pulse and respiration counters. Hemoglobin colorimeters. When we get him back on home ground again, we'll know something about why he doesn't like ships with the nose where the nose ought to be."
"I told you time was short. We can't afford to horse around with all that special rigging. If we finally do end up taking a contract we'll have to accept a time penalty that will break us. I say forget the whole thing. It was a wonderful dream—but only a dream."
"We may as well make a try. That's not costing us anything, at least. Unless you'd rather sit around on your hands—"
Hugh gave him the go ahead, and he put the technicians on a round the clock basis to rig the ship for the Ragalian's special benefit. Even at that it was four days before the ship was ready to go.
The H-62 was a big ship, the biggest that a small yard like Wilkinson Spacecraft could turn out. She was a hundred and eighty feet high and forty-five in diameter. Fittings could be furnished for either cargo or passenger service or a combination of both. Only fourteen models had been built since the yard was organized by Hugh Wilkinson. Even he had begun to believe they might never make another one.
On the day of takeoff the ship rose smoothly from the port as the party settled themselves aboard. The vessel had an inertia control which was strictly a Wilkinson achievement. Even though forced patent sharing made it available to other companies there was a conviction in the trade that Wilkinson did a job of production that was not matched anywhere else.
The Ragalian was irritable and intractible, almost to the point of rudeness. He appeared to consider the delay in launching the vessel as a personal insult. But George assumed personal charge of the foreign technician and spent every available hour with him, absorbing his gripes with patient attempts at understanding.
The quarters prepared in the hold were such that the Ragalian could get out of his suit into an atmosphere normal to him. When visiting in the same room, George was the one to put on a protective suit. This gave the engineer a good chance to observe closely the physical makeup of his charge. He watched to the point of staring, absorbing the details of the Ragalian's bearing, gestures, his waddling walk, the occasional rippling that seemed to make the whole epidermis quiver in rare moments of excitement. Carefully, second by second, the hidden instruments recorded the pattern of Sleth Forander's physiological reactions.
After forty-eight hours George considered that he had a sufficient record of the Ragalian's norm on the charts. He proposed then a tour of the ship. The visitor agreed without visible expression. George wondered what the charts would show of that moment.
Outside the special chamber, the Ragalian moved clumsily along in his can-like suit. Gravity was adjusted to make it easier for him to balance with the long arms.
George took him first to the engine room and pointed out the massive main thrust members that absorbed the titanic push of the drive chambers. "Here's where the most difficult modification will have to take place," he said. "It will be necessary to redesign the entire thrust structure. You see, if it is located in the nose, along with the engines, it will still be necessary to provide a reaction passage along the entire axis of the ship, piercing the living quarters and cargo space. This will require enormous amounts of insulation, of course, and reduce the pay-space of the vessel accordingly.
"The only alternative would be to arrange a kind of Christmas-tree effect and hang the reaction chambers outside the vessel up near the nose, letting them thrust into free space outside the hull. Either way, however, is tremendously complicated and inefficient. You wouldn't be getting the kind of ship you're riding in now. I honestly don't think you'd be satisfied with it."
He couldn't tell what was going on inside the can. The Ragalian was hardly visible in the swirl of blue vapor that backed the face plate. But he knew the hidden recorders were getting the data and felt a compulsive desire to take a look at them right now. But that would have to wait.
He showed the way around the vast pile room, explaining in detail how the enormous nuclear energy was converted to thrust and expended in the drive chambers. The Kagalian seemed enthusiastic and spent endless hours asking questions about the details of this operation.
When they were through and ready to go back to his chamber he paused a moment and glanced upward. "Engines up there; perfect ship then. Men belong down here."
Mark Wilde came up behind George as the engineer took the charts out of the recorder and unrolled them on the long table in the work room.
"Your gizmos giving out with all the secret yearnings of our pear-shaped friend." he asked.
George shook his head. "I can't interpret everything that's on here. I expect to need Nat's help on that. But it's a cinch that he goes through a change every time he considers the ship. I expect to get him upstairs in a couple more days. I'll bet the bottom drops out of some of these lines."
"If you get him up," said Mark.
George took it easy. He spent another day in the lower parts of the ship and talked by radio to the company Director of Personnel Psychology, Dr. Nathanial Bergstrom. Nat was highly interested in the outcome of the experiment. He offered suggestions for prodding Sleth Forander, but he didn't see how the outcome of this investigation could posibly affect the company's relationship with the Ragalians in accepting or rejecting a contract to build ships for them.
George didn't argue. He wasn't too sure of his own ground. But he felt he was beginning to get a clue.
It was two days later that he proposed a tour of the upper regions and control room of the ship. Sleth Forander hesitated only an instant, then agreed.
There was no outward sign of disturbance as the elevator carried them upward. It was only in the first moment of stepping out into the control room that the foreign technician showed visible agitation. The control room was surrounded by visio-plates on walls and ceiling so that the effect was one of standing on the naked prow of the ship with nothing but empty space above and all around.
"We can turn these off," George suggested, "if it makes you uncomfortable—"
"No—" Sleth Forander said instantly. But George could detect the quivering of his arm tips in the tight fitting sleeves as one evidence of his inner agitation. "Men's ship," Sleth Forander continued. "Foolish design, but that men's way. You build better way for Ragalian. I ride ship your way until then."
But he stayed only an hour, although the intricate controlling mechanisms were worth a full day of the kind of interest he'd shown in other parts of the ship.
George returned again to the control room after accompanying Sleth Forander back to the hold. "That's it," he said. "Turn it around and let's go home. I think we've got the story we need."
"I don't see that we've got anything at all," said Mark Wilde pessimistically. "This whole thing has been a useless goose chase and we still aren't going to be able to deliver what they want the way they want at the price they want to pay, and when they want to pay it."
The trip had been a circular one about the Solar System and they were near enough home to land that same afternoon. George took the recording charts at once to the office of Nat Bergstrom.
The psychologist whistled with interest as he laid out the long tapes. "There's one nervous boy," he exclaimed. "What in the world did you do to him here at the last? I'd be willing to bet that he's suffering right now from one man-sized case of some Ragalian brand of psychosomatic illness."
"Took him up to the control room for an hour," said George.
"It looks more like the record of a kid who'd blundered into the spooky cellar of an abandoned house at midnight. He all but had the screeming meemies!"
"And nothing to cause it. That's what you'd call a pretty clear-cut neurotic reaction, isn't it?"
Nat Bergstrom smiled and shook his head. "I wouldn't call it anything, particularly. How can you possibly assign it as a neurotic reaction or not? You know nothing of the Ragalian norm, outside of the little you recorded before taking him up to the control room. That means nothing, relatively speaking. It may be completely normal to react in such a manner in such a place—if you're a Ragalian."
"It's neurotic if there's no adequate stimulus!" George protested.
"How do you know there wasn't?"
"Well—there just wasn't."
"For you. Not necessarily for Sleth Forander. Obviously, the stimulus was there, or he would not have reacted in this manner. You engineers are so forgetful sometimes that your normalcy can't always be imposed over another individual's quite different normalcy. It may be quite normal for a Ragalian to react with panic in such surroundings as you imposed. The stimulus may be quite adequate."
"That would, mean there would be nothing we could do about it!"
"What do you want to do?"
"Sell him a hundred standard H-62's."
Nat shook his head again. "You'd probably have to induce a major basic change in the Ragalian character, from what you've told me."
"I'll do that, if I have to! But I still say it's neurotic to get the screeming meemies just because you're on top of a spaceship instead of the bottom."
"Maybe. I'll give you a hand, if you want me to. Perhaps we can find out just what the nature of the reaction is, and its stimulus."
"No." George rolled up the charts and started for the door. "I think I can handle this myself. It's strictly a problem in engineering, and I think I've got all data I need. I'll let you know if I need help."
It was neurotic anyway you looked at it, he told himself as he went toward the main offices again. There was no element of rationality in the Ragalian's reaction. Of course, Nat had a point. Exactly who could define rationality for a given species or even an individual?
Well, in this case it could be done by the guy that wanted to sell a hundred 62's. It had to be done if they were going to be sold. And they had to be sold if Wilkinson Spacecraft was to have its present chance for survival.
He stopped on the way and picked up the reports prepared by his engineering staff in his absence. A quick glance told him it was what they'd expected.
Hugh and Mark were waiting when he reached Hugh's office. He slapped the reports on the desk and sat down. "Removal of the control room to the keel plate and moving the engines and quarters to the nose would cost us an eighty-nine percent re-design of the thrust skeleton," he said. "That means approximately the same percentage of new dies and jigs. It means design of an entirely new thrust channel and sufficient research to find a lining material that will permit living quarters on the other side of it. Complete redesign of control structures is called for—"
"There's no need of going on," said Hugh. "What's the cost figure?"
"Two point twelve."
"And Monarch and Apex can do it for one-six."
"I guess that lets us out," said Mark. "Now, I've been thinking: if we could increase the demand for Tigers—"
"There's one answer," said George quietly. "One way we might pull out of this whole thing and find ourselves on top."
Hugh Wilkinson looked at him, the bushy brows heavy over narrowed eyes. "What's that way?" he said.
"You've got to gamble," George replied. "Gamble the whole yard, everything you've built up—there'd be no starting over again if you lost. There wouldn't be anything left to start with, except your bare hands."
"It wouldn't be the first time I was in such a fix," said Hugh. "What's your answer?"
"Sign the contract. Go ahead and build standard 62's, modified only in the customary manner to adapt, for standard environmental requirements."
"Leave the control room in the nose?" cried Mark.
George nodded. "Leave the control room in the nose."
"And where would that put us when the Ragalians found we hadn't built according to specifications?"
"That's the gamble we take. They'd either buy them the way we built—or we'd be stuck with a hundred H-62's on our hands, representing the entire asets that Wilkinson Spacecraft owns and could borrow or steal."
"You're crazy!" Mark exclaimed.
"Let's have it," Hugh demanded, "Either put up or shut up!"
George unrolled the charts he'd recorded aboard the spaceship. For an hour he explained carefully all his observations and conclusions regarding Sleth Forander. He told of Dr. Nat Bergstrom's comment on the recorded data.
"It's as clear a case of neurosis as you'll ever hope to find," George concluded. "It's not only a neurosis in Sleth Forander himself, but in his entire race. At one time it may have had distinct survival value, but not any more. It's a holdover from a reaction determined ages ago. Today it's obsolete, and if that isn't neurosis, I don't know what is. Of course I'm only an engineer," he added apologetically, "and my only purpose is in selling spaceships, but I'd stake my reputation on this analysis."
"You're asking a lot more than that," said Hugh dryly. "You're asking me to stake Wilkinson Spacecraft."
George shook his head. "No—I'm not asking. I'm merely pointing out what could be done. If I owned the yard I doubt I'd have guts enough to make the gamble. But I don't own it."
"Suppose we agree it is neurosis? Where do we go from there?"
"While we're building the standard models, we cure the neurosis in Sleth Forander. He'll have the ships sent home and do likewise for the rest of his people—or they'll cut his throat on arrival. But we'll be in the clear. They've given him complete authority to deal in this matter."
Hugh Wilkinson shook his head slowly. "If I were a younger man—" Then he looked up and a fresh light seemed to come into his eyes. "What difference does that make? I'm still young enough! We'll put the yard in the position where it belongs— or start again with bare hands if that's necessary! We'll build the ships your way, George.
"My only reservation is that I get to take you apart, piece by piece, with these bare hands if it doesn't work out the way you plan!"
There were times in his life when George Mahoney soundly cursed himself for his attempts at cleverness, and this was one of them. The days that followed Hugh Wilkinson's decision were the blackest he'd ever known.
He watched the assembly lines going into action, producing the components that were fed slowly to the big yard where the giant cruisers would be assembled. He watched the construction of control room assemblies—^which would go where control rooms had always gone—and the building of the special atmosphere plants that would produce the blue vapor the Ragalians breathed and lived in.
Every asset that Hugh Wilkinson could put his hands on was tied up in the production of those vessels. As soon as the Ragalians discovered non-compliance with specifications and the banking agencies looked into the matter—Hugh Wilkinson would be finished. George knew there was no sense in talking about a start with bare hands any more. Hugh would be washed up for good. In this galaxy, at least—
He turned over the engineering to his staff. It wasn't very complicated anyway, now that standard models had been determined upon. But Sleth Forander grew more complex by the day. George assumed responsibility for his comfort and welfare, and was under constant prodding from Hugh; "Let's get this neurosis of his cured early. Then we'll know we're in the clear. But how do we know when he's cured, anyway?"
George didn't know the answers. He hoped to find them as he went along, the way you do in- any engineering problem. But he rapidly became aware that he wasn't dealing with ordinary engineering material, while at the same time he'd committed himself to a definite, specific answer. That took the problem somewhat out of the realm of ordinary engineering, procedure. It placed it smack in the middle of plain, unadulterated idiocy.
Unexpectedly, however, Sleth Forander helped a little. With the contract signed and production under way, he seemed to unbend. "Like to see Earth," he said to George. "Know cities and ways of men."
He was just an ordinary tourist at heart, George decided. With his mission accomplished, he wanted to get out and see the sights. And then it hit George like an inspiration just what sights to show him.
He spent a number of days giving the Ragalian a background of Earth's history, pointing up the epic rise of man from the caves to the seas and plains and valleys. He told how mankind has spread and conquered the Earth.
He took his guest to museums that showed tangible evidence of this conquest. He took him to the great power plants and manufacturing centers and showed him the vast cities that were spread out upon the surface of the Earth. He spent two months on a world tour—at company expense.
In London, he got a blistering communication from Hugh Wilkinson, wanting to know if he'd completely lost his mind. In Egypt, where they'd gone to see the pyramids, he got one informing him that he'd be taken into custody by agents of the local constabulary unless he returned at once. He and Sleth Forander took off immediately for India, where they lost themselves for a week.
In the end he refused all communications from Wilkinson and was aware that agents were on his trail. It was difficult eluding them with so conspicuous a figure as the Ragalian in tow, but somehow he managed. When he finally returned home, he observed, from the craft in which they were flying over the city, that sixteen finished hulls were lined up in the Wilkinson yard. The others would be coming out at a fast rate now, he knew. It
was time to take some action. Again, Sleth Eorander obligingly provided the cue. He hadn't yet reported to Hugh, and he and Sleth were seated in the latter's quarters, provided by the government for such as he. George was encased in a protective suit and Sleth was standing by the window looking out.
"Earth wonderful place," he said with a pensiveness that seemed to come through clearly over the translator. "Men great conquerors. Always move up, change world, space—other worlds. My people—we fail. Ten thousand generations same.
"All worlds we see, all creatures visit us—we like Earthmen best. We most like be Earthmen. Why we buy Earth ships."
George took a deep breath and felt the slightly stale air of his tanks filling his lungs. This was it. This was the time to blast. And if he misfired, Wilkinson Spacecraft was a dead duck.
"You can't make yourselves like Earthmen just by buying Earth ships," he said.
"Know that—" Sleth Forander said, turning from the window. There seemed to be a sense of wistful apology in his voice. "So many things needful. We try. We fail. Earthmen so great, so successful."
For a moment, George felt a sense of pity for the alien technician. He saw the reason for the irritable truculence Sleth Forander had displayed at first. His deep, blind admiration for Earthmen had made it necessary to build a wall against them. Now that wall was down. George almost regretted what he had to say.
"You don't go forward by walking backwards," he said slowly. The Ragalian stood motionless as if struck by a blow. No sound or expression came from his still form for a full minute. Then he said almost inaudibly, "Understand?"
"I think you understand, all right," George answered. "At least I'll bet your anthropologists do. If you had any decent engineers they'd know it, too. Those flippers of yours are designed for moving strictly in the other direction, and five hundred thousand or a million years of deliberately walking backwards hasn't altered their basic form."
"You insult!"
"Don't get on your high horse. You asked for it. I think you know intuitively what I'm talking about even if you don't know it otherwise.
"The whole picture is as plain as your desire to build ships with control rooms where the engines belong. Look: mankind has the same problem, too. Not as bad as yours. I'll admit, but bad enough. We've got soft, easily damaged bodies that have to be handled with care to keep them from getting squashed in a world where squashing is easy.
"Your case is just a little worse. Mother Nature on your world really really played a dirty trick, putting your brains right out in the open with only a thin membrane between them and a brutal, destructive environment.
"It was a matter of life or death to protect the delicate, exposed organ. The survival of the race depended on it. Everything you do now, everything you've ever done, is geared to protection of this one terribly vulnerable physical characteristic. And some ages ago, your race even hit on the incredible solution of protecting it with the rest of your body by actually walking backwards!"
"Insult! Go!" The fierce arms of sinew lashed out suddenly, coming within a hair width of George's face. A sudden chill rippled the length of his spine. He hadn't anticipated this, but Sleth Forander could rip open the suit with a single flick of those deadly arm tips. Death in that bluish atmosphere would not be pleasant.
"I have a couple more things to say," he continued quietly. "Then I'll go if you want me to.
"If you had the experience with mechanisms that I have had you'd recognize at once that the form and function of a machine is invariably an expression of the attitude, illusions and ideals of the race creating it. You tipped your hand right off the bat by the irrational insistence on putting the control room of the ship against the keel plate.
"You couldn't tell me why. It just had to be that way, that's all. And any other form of design scared the daylights out of you. Simply because for a good many thousands of generations your entire culture had been built on the principle of protecting the head. This is so strong you demand that it be carried out even in your machines—and you didn't know why!"
The tips of sinew quivered as if Sleth Forander were fighting to restrain their power. George tried to ignore their closeness and went on. "There's a principle here," he said. "A very basic principle. Risk. You have to take a risk every time to take a step ahead. Risk to your vulnerable parts, whether it be in your physical body or your secret dreams.
"We learned that a long time ago. You have never learned it, because you demanded one hundred percent protection and no risk at all to your vulnerable spot.
"It's engraved on your souls so deeply that I doubt anything can ever rub it out. I doubt that Ragalians will ever learn how to turn about and face the stars, or whatever it is that beckons them. You don't have the courage, or you'd have long ago discovered you can't back your way along an upward trail.
"If you think I'm wrong, however," he went on more quietly, "now's your chance to prove it. We haven't built your ships the way you asked for them. We've put the control center up front, where it belongs. If you've got guts enough, take these ships and face the stars as you try to make your way among them. I don't think you have. I don't think you've got the guts to turn around and walk forward, facing the world, instead of backing from it!"
He saw the attack coming and leaped from it. He knew he didn't have a chance if those arms reached him with their slashing tips. But Sleth Forander didn't pursue. He stood still in the center of the room, crying a chill, wailing cry of doom while ripples of movement and changing hue moved over the surface of his body.
"Go!" he shrieked finally. "Go! Kill— Kill—"
George reached the door of the airlock and snatched at it, sealing himself in while the Ragalian collapsed on the other side of the transparent panel.
He removed the suit outside the chamber and hung it up. When he looked back Sleth Forander was still collapsed on the floor. He didn't know what to do. Certainly he'd touched off a long-delayed time bomb all right, but he hadn't counted on such a physical reaction. It couldn't be bad enough to—
He put the ugly thought out of his mind and called the physician assigned to the aliens. When the man came he said nothing about what had occurred between them. He had to get away for the moment. Sleth Forander would be as safe in the doctor's care as he could possibly be. There was nothing more that George Mahoney could do. It looked like he'd really done his bit!
He reported to Hugh Wilkinson, listened to ten minutes of the Old Man's tirade before cutting off, and went to bed to sleep the clock around. He hadn't realized the extent of physical exhaustion the past few weeks had cost him.
When he awoke again it was to the sound of the phone once more, and Hugh Wilkinson's voice roared out as he answered it! "Mahoney! You had something to do with it—I know you did! If Sleth Forander dies, you're going to be in one unholy jam. Get down here and let's get our story together before they come for you!"
A breath of cold air seemed to pass over George. "Die? What are you talking about? He just fainted last night. Exhaustion of the trip or something. I called the doctor."
"And the doctor doesn't call it exhaustion or something like that. He says Sleth Forander is in a state of shock that looks like the result of some kind of attack. Did you get in a fight with him?"
"I wouldn't be here if I had. But I'll be down."
He dressed in a kind of frenzy. It wasn't possible that his jolt was capable of doing this to the Ragalian. He interrupted his dressing to put in a call to Nat Bergstrom, asking him to meet at the plant. Then he finished dressing and exceeded the speed limit all the way to the yard.
The others were waiting for him when he arrived. He plunged into a description of his last interview with Sleth Forander. "Everything I suspected was true," he said. "His attitude admitted the whole thing. It was so big he just couldn't take it, isn't that right, Nat?"
The psychologist nodded. "I'm afraid it is. You can't just take the basic premise of a person's life and blast it to oblivion. The same goes for other-world creatures. Evidently Sleth Forander's whole existence evolves around protection of his brain, as you guessed. That's why merely going into the exposed control room on the ship produced such a neurotic-appearing reaction. From our point of view it was neurotic. From his, it was perfectly normal. Rock come along; head get knocked off, as he says. He's right."
"He's not right!" George cried. "His people have gone beyond the stage where it's right. They want to get out into space and get a footing that their intellectual potential deserves. This protect-your-brain-at-all-cost business has got to go by the boards. They can build special hats, graft a bony skull over the brain, any one of a thousand things, but they've got to admit the present uselessness of their overconcern for their brains!"
"What will happen if they don't?"
George regarded him without expression. "We won't sell a hundred 62's that are beginning to pile up in the yard. That's what'll happen!"
"Then I'm afraid they'll just have to pile up. You aren't going to sell them to Sleth Forander—or any other Ragalian. I can promise you that!"
"I'll cover anything you want to let talk for you. We've gone too far now—"
"I think we have," said Hugh. "You are forgetting the doctor's report is that Sleth Forander is in critical condition. Supposing he survives, what will have to be done with him, Nat?"
"Ship him back home as soon as possible," said the psychologist. "If they've got the equipment, they can wipe out all memory of his visit to Earth. He'll likely be as good as new then. I wouldn't worry too much about his dying. I think he'll pull through the shock. I'm sorry things turned out this way on your deal, though. That wipes out Wilkinson Spacecraft, doesn't it?"
Hugh nodded. "It was a good gamble. I knew what I was doing. There's only one thing left—" He looked meaningly at George Mahoney.
"We're not through," said George quietly. "You don't give up an engineering problem just because your computer jams. You feed it new data until it unjams. Keep that production line rolling, Mark. The Ragalians are going to buy your 62's."
"Wait! Where are you going?" Hugh demanded.
"To unjam a computer!"
They were reluctant to admit him at the hospital for extra-terrestrials, to which Sleth Forander had been taken. "Absolutely no visitors," the nurse told him.
"I'm the only friend he's got," George protested. "He's here on a one-man purchasing mission. His nearest embassy is a dozen light years away. How would you like to be dying so far from home and not even allowed to see your one friend?"
"I don't know—" The nurse looked him over dubiously. "You'll have to talk with the doctor—"
He went through the same story again with the physician, and then with the director of the hospital. They checked with the government personnel division handling foreign visas. He was finally given approval for a ten minute visit when Sleth Forander was able to speak.
That was not until the next morning. George spent the night in the hospital waiting room. He was groggy for sleep when they at last told him he could go in.
He hoped no one was looking as he stepped through the lock in his protective suit and greeted the Ragalian. Sleth Forander turned his ponderous body slowly on the bed and recognized George. A wave of tremor shook him.
"Sleth—" George said softly. "I'm going to be here just a minute and then I'm going. I came to say just one thing. You can get well as soon as you want to. You're sick because you haven't made a decision. Make one and get well, Sleth.
"You can decide that everything I told you was a lie, and go back home and forget about it. You'll be well very soon. Or you can admit whatever truth you found in the things I said—and make the necessary changes. That'll make you sick for quite a while maybe, but you'll get over it eventually. An individual's way of life is a manifestation of his physical structure. Change one and you always have to change the other. It's invariably a painful process.
"Make up your mind. Either way. A calculating machine can't function when it's trying to give two answers to the same question. Neither can a human brain—or a Ragalian one. Reach a decision. Then get well. I'll be back later, Sleth."
He paused at the lock door for a moment. The Ragalian was looking at him with searching eye-stalks. The tremors had ceased. "You friend," he said. "Come back—"
George took a deep breath. "Yeah—I'll be back."
Hugh refused to believe there was any chance now. He had already ordered production lines stopped and was making an attempt to liquidate stocks and supplies on hand in the hope of being able to save the yard.
But that same afternoon George was called back to the hospital. Sleth Forander insisted on seeing him again.
"I decide," the Ragalian said as soon as he was in the room again. "Decision to be Ragalian; bury head. Or be like Earthman; go forward, head up. Decide go forward; let rocks come."
George couldn't restrain the kind of choked feeling he felt at the base of his throat. "That's a good decision Sleth," he said. "You won't regret it. What about your people?"
"Admire Earthmen. Want forward motion like Earthmen. Tell them only way is face to stars. They angry. Have to believe. Tired being backward Ragalian."
"You'll take the ships the way we've built them, then?"
"Take ships. Ragalian go to stars. Head up. Like Earthmen!"
They let him go from the hospital. There was nothing to keep him there, since his physical reactions had vanished with the making of his decision.
George knew he hadn't told half of it. Going back home and trying to sell his people on the Earth-type ships would be no easy task. He felt a momentary guilt over what he had done. Had it been right, after all? He hadn't set out to altruistically set the Ragalians on the right track. His only interest had been in selling them a hundred cruisers.
But maybe what Sleth Forander had said was true. Maybe there had come a point in the development of his people at which they were ready to make a shift. They could be ready to assume the risks they had fought against until now. Their admiration of Earth and its men and machines could be an expression of that readiness.
George didn't know, but he hoped and believed this was so. He wanted it to be so because of his friendship for Sleth Forander.
Hugh was all but speechless when George brought the Ragalian to the office again for personal confirmation of his intent to purchase the cruisers as they were.
"I guess I was right the first time," he murmured in dazed wonder. "I am getting too old for this kind of gamble. But then, with the position Wilkinson Spacecraft will be in, I won't have to gamble, ever again."
Mark Wilde had difficulty believing it, too. "You'd like to make us think you knew what -you were doing every step of the way!" he said. "But it was nothing but plain dumb luck. Quit while you're winning, boy. Don't ever try anything like that again!"
But Nat was thoughtful. "Imagine it," he said. "You've probably shifted the culture of an entire race—just to sell them an order of spaceships—" He shook his head in disbelief.
"Don't give me too much credit," said George. "It just didn't figure from an engineering standpoint. Control room built on the keel plate! Imagine that, if you can!"
IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE—
- a remarkable new novelet by Judith Merril—
- an exciting novelet of adventure in furthest space, by Michael Shaara—
- and stories by Roger Dee, Eric Frank Russell, Theodore Pratt, and others—
- written especially for you who read