Dead silence reigned in the screen
room. The head of the tiny Mesklinite filled the screen, but no one
could interpret the expression on the completely unhuman “face.” No
one could think of anything to say; asking Barlennan what he meant
would be a waste of words, since he obviously planned to tell
anyway. He waited for long moments before resuming his speech; and
when he did, he used better English than even Lackland realized he
had acquired.
“Dr. Rosten, a few moments ago you said
that you owed us more than you could hope to repay. I realize that
your words were perfectly sincere in one way—I do not doubt the
actuality of your gratitude for a moment—but in another they were
merely rhetorical. You had no intention of giving us any more than
you had already agreed to supply—weather information, guidance
across new seas, possibly the material aid Charles mentioned some
time ago in the matter of spice collecting. I realize fully that by
your moral code I am entitled to no more; I made an agreement and
should adhere to it, particularly since your side of the bargain
has largely been fulfilled already.
“However, I want more; and since I have
come to value the opinions of some, at least, of your people I want
to explain why I am doing this—I want to justify myself, if
possible. I tell you now, though, that whether I succeed in gaining
your sympathy or not, I will do exactly as I planned.
“I am a merchant, as you well know,
primarily interested in exchanging goods for what profit I can get.
You recognized that fact, offering me every material you could
think of in return for my help; it was not your fault that none of
it was of use to me. Your machines, you said, would not function in
the gravity and pressure of my world; your metals I cannot use—and
would not need if I could; they lie free on the surface in many
parts of Mesklin. Some people use them for ornaments; but I know
from talk with Charles that they cannot be fashioned into really
intricate forms without great machines, or at least more heat than
we can easily produce. We do know the thing you call fire, by the
way, is in ways more manageable than the flame cloud; I am sorry to
have deceived Charles in that matter, but it seemed best to me at
the time.
“To return to the original subject, I
refused all but the guidance and weather information of the things
you were willing to give. I thought some of you might be suspicious
of that, but I have heard no sign of it in your words.
Nevertheless, I agreed to make a voyage longer than any that has
been made in recorded history to help solve your problem. You had
told me how badly you needed the knowledge; none of you appeared to
think that I might want the same thing, though I asked time and
again for just that when I saw one or another of your machines. You
refused answers to those questions, making the same excuse every
time. I felt, therefore, that any way in which I could pick up some
of the knowledge you people possess was legitimate. You have said,
at one time or another, much about the value of what you call
‘science,’ and always implied was the fact that my people did not
have it. I cannot see why, if it is good and valuable to your
people, it would not be equally so to mine.
“You can see what I am leading up to. I
came on this voyage with exactly the same objective in my mind that
was in yours when you sent me; I came to learn. I want to know the
things by which you perform such remarkable acts. You, Charles,
lived all winter in a place that should have killed you at once, by
the aid of that science; it could make as much difference in the
lives of my people, I am sure you will agree.
“Therefore I offer you a new bargain. I
realize that my failure to live up to the letter of the old one may
make you reluctant to conclude another with me. That will be simply
too bad; I make no bones about pointing out that you can do nothing
else. You are not here; you cannot come here; granting that you
might drop some of your explosives down here in anger, you will not
do so as long as I am near this machine of yours. The agreement is
simple: knowledge for knowledge. You teach me, or Dondragmer, or
anyone else in my crew who has the time and ability to learn the
material, all the time we are working to take this machine apart
for you and transmit the knowledge it contains.”
“Just a—”
“Wait, Chief.” Lackland cut short
Rosten’s expostulation. “I know Barl better than you do. Let me
talk.” He and Rosten could see each other in their respective
screens, and for a moment the expedition’s leader simply glared.
Then he realized the situation and subsided.
“Right, Charlie. Tell
him.”
“Barl, you seemed to have some contempt
in your tone when you referred to our excuse for not explaining our
machines to you. Believe me, we were not trying to fool you. They
are complicated; so complicated that the men who design and build
them spend nearly half their lives first learning the laws that
make them operate and the arts of their actual manufacture. We did
not mean to belittle the knowledge of your people, either; it is
true that we know more, but it is only because we have had longer
in which to learn.
“Now, as I understand it, you want to
learn about the machines in this rocket as you take it apart.
Please, Barl, take my word as the sincerest truth
when I tell you first that I for one could not do it, since I do
not understand a single one of them; and second, that not one would
do you the least good if you did comprehend it. The best I can say
right now is that they are machines for measuring things that
cannot be seen or heard or felt or tasted—things you would have to
see in operation in other ways for a long time before you could
even begin to understand. That is not meant as insult; what I say
is almost as true for me, and I have grown up from childhood
surrounded by and even using those forces. I do not understand
them. I do not expect to understand them before I die; the science
we have covers so much knowledge that no one man can even begin to
learn all of it, and I must be satisfied with the field I do
know—and perhaps add to it what little one man may in a
lifetime.
“We cannot accept your bargain, Barl,
because it is physically impossible to carry out our side of
it.”
Barlennan could not smile in the human
sense, and he carefully refrained from giving his own version of
one. He answered as gravely as Lackland had spoken.
“You can do your part, Charles, though
you do not know it.
“When I first started this trip, all
the things you have just said were true, and more. I fully intended
to find this rocket with your help, and then place the radios where
you could see nothing and proceed to dismantle the machine itself,
learning all your science in the process.
“Slowly I came to realize that all you
have said is true. I learned that you were not keeping knowledge
from me deliberately when you taught us so quickly and carefully
about the laws and techniques used by the glider-makers on that
island. I learned it still more surely when you helped Dondragmer
make the differential pulley. I was expecting you to bring up those
points in your speech just now; why didn’t you? They were good
ones.
“It was actually when you were teaching
us about the gliders that I began to have a slight understanding of
what was meant by your term ‘science.’ I realized, before the end
of that episode, that a device so simple you people had long since
ceased to use it actually called for an understanding of more of
the universe’s laws than any of my people realized existed. You
said specifically at one point, while apologizing for a lack of
exact information, that gliders of that sort had been used by your
people more than two hundred years ago. I can guess how much more
you know now—guess just enough to let me realize what I can’t
know.
“But you can still do what I want. You
have done a little already, in showing us the differential hoist. I
do not understand it, and neither does Dondragmer, who spent much
more time with it; but we are both sure it is some sort of relative
to the levers we have been using all our lives. We want to start
at the beginning, knowing fully that we
cannot learn all you know in our lifetimes. We do hope to learn
enough to understand how you have found these things out. Even I
can see it is not just guesswork, or even philosophizing
like the learned ones who tell us that Mesklin is a bowl. I am
willing at this point to admit you are right; but I would like to
know how you found out the same fact for your own world. I am sure
you knew before you left its surface and could see it all at once.
I want to know why the Bree floats, and why
the canoe did the same, for a while. I want to know what crushed
the canoe. I want to know why the wind blows down the cleft all the
time—no, I didn’t understand your explanation. I want to know why
we are warmest in winter when we can’t see the sun for the longest
time. I want to know why a fire glows, and why flame dust kills. I
want my children or theirs, if I ever have any, to know what makes
this radio work, and your tank, and someday this rocket. I want to
know much—more than I can learn, no doubt; but if I can start my
people learning for themselves, the way you must have—well, I’d be
willing to stop selling at a profit.” Neither Lackland nor Rosten
found anything to say for a long moment. Rosten broke the
silence.
“Barlennan, if you learned what you
want, and began to teach your people, would you tell them where the
knowledge came from? Do you think it would be good for them to
know?”
“For some, yes; they would want to know
about other worlds, and people who had used the same way to
knowledge they were starting on. Others—well, we have a lot of
people who let the rest pull the load for them. If they knew, they
wouldn’t bother to do any learning themselves; they’d just ask for
anything particular they wanted to know—as I did at first; and
they’d never realize you weren’t telling them because you couldn’t.
They’d think you were trying to cheat them. I suppose if I told
anyone, that sort would find out sooner or later, and—well, I guess
it would be better to let them think I’m the genius. Or Don; they’d
be more likely to believe it of him.”
Rosten’s answer was brief and to the
point.
“You’ve made a deal.”