"Torture us not, Sir Felix!" pleaded Zerdai.
"It's a perpetual-motion machine."
Kubanan asked: "What's that?"
"A machine that runs forever, or at least until it wears out."
Kubanan frowned and twitched his antennae. "Not sure am I that I understand you. We have water wheels for operating grain mills, which run until they wear out."
"Not quite what I mean." Borel concentrated on putting a scientific concept into words, a hard thing to do because he neither knew nor cared about such matters. "I mean, this machine will give out more power than is put into it."
"Wherein lies the advantage of that?"
"Why, Earthmen prize power above all things. Power runs their space ships and motor vehicles, their communications equipment, and factories. Power lights their homes and milks their cows… I forget, you don't know about cows. And where do they get their power? From coal, uranium, and things like that. Minerals. They get some from the sun and the tides, but not enough, and they worry about exhaustion of their minerals. Now, my device takes power from the force of gravity, which is the very fundamental quality of matter." He was striding up and down in his eagerness. "Sooner or later, Krishna is bound to have a scientific revolution like that of Earth. Neither you nor the Viagens Interplanetarias can hold it off forever. And when—"
"I hope I live not to see it," said Kubanan.
"When it comes, don't you want Mikardand to lead the planet? Of course! No need to give up your social system. In fact, if we organize the thing right, it'll not only secure the rule of the Order in Mikardand, but extend the Order's influence over all Krishna!"
Kubanan was beginning to catch a little of Borel's fire. "How propose you to do that?"
"Ever heard of a corporation?"
"Let me think—is that not some vulgar scheme earthmen use in trade and manufacture?"
"Yes, but there's more to it than that. There's no limit to what you can do with a corporation. The Viagens is a corporation, though all its stock is owned by governments…" Borel plunged into corporation finance, not neglecting to say: "Of course, the promoter of a corporation gets fifty-one percent of the stock in consideration of his services."
"Who would the promoter be in our case?"
"I, naturally. We can form this corporation to finance the machine. The initial financing can come from the Order itself, and later the rmembers can either hold—"
"Wait, wait. How can the members buy stock when they own no money of their own?"
"Unh. That's a tough one. I guess the treasury'll have to keep the stock; it can either draw profits from the lease of the machines, or sell the stock at an enormous profit—"
"Sir Felix," said Kubanan, "You make my head to spin. No more, lest my head split like a melon on the chopping-block. Enticing though your scheme be, there is one immovable obstacle."
"Yes?"
"The Grand Master and the other officers would never permit—you'll not take offense?—would never permit an outsider such as yourself to acquire such power over the Order. 'Twas all I could do to put over your lottery scheme, and this would be one thing too many, like a second nose on your face."
"All right, think it over," said Borel. "Now suppose you tell me about the Order of Qarar."
Kubanan obliged with an account of the heroic deeds of Quarar, the legendary founder of the Order who had slain assorted giants and monsters. As he talked, Borel reflected on his position. He doubted if the Qararuma would want to take in a being from another planet like himself. Even if they did, the club rules against private property would handicap his style.
He asked: "How do Mikardanduma become members? By being—uh—hatched in the official incubator?"
"Not always. Each child from the incubator is tested at various* times during its growth. If it fail any test, 'tis let out for adoption by some good commoner family. On the other hand, when membership falls low, we watch the children of commoners, and any that show exceptional qualities are admitted to training as wards of the Order." The treasurer went on to tell of the various grades of membership until he got sleepy and took his leave.
Later Borel asked Zerdai: "Love me?"
"You know I do, my lord!"
"Then I have a job for you."
"Aught you say, dearest master."
"I want one of those honorary memberships."
"But Felix, that's for notables like the King of Gozashtand only! I know not what I could accomplish—"
"You make the suggestion to Kubanan, see? And keep needling him until he asks me. He trusts you."
"I will try, my dearest. And I hope Shurgez never returns."
While ordinarily Borel would have investigated this last cryptic remark, at the moment his head was too full of schemes for self-aggrandizement. "Another thing. Who's the most skilled metal-worker in Mishe? I want somebody who can make a working model that really works."
"I'll find out for you, my knight."
Zerdai sent Borel to one Henjare bad-Qavao the Brazier, a gnomish Mikardandu whom Borel first dazzled with his facade and then swore to secrecy with dreadful-sounding oaths of his own invention.
He then presented the craftsman with a rough plan for a wheel with a lot of rods with weights on their ends, pivoted to the circumference so that they had some freedom to swing in the plane of rotation of the wheel. There was also a trip arrangement so that as the wheel rotated, each rod as it approached the top was moved from a position leaning back against a stop on the rim to a straight-out radial position. Hence the thing looked as though at any time the weights on one side stood out farther from the center than those on the other, and therefore would overbalance the latter and cause the wheel to turn indefinitely.
Borel knew just enough about science to realize that the device would not work, though not enough to know why. On the other hand, since these gloops knew even less than he did, there should be no trouble in selling them the idea.
That night Kubanan said: "Sir Felix, a brilliant thought has struck me. Won't you accept an honorary membership in our proud Order? In truth, you'll find it a great advantage while you dwell in Mikardand, or even when you journey elsewhere."
Borel registered surprise. "Me? I'm most humbly grateful, Excellency, but is an outsider like myself worthy of such an honor?" Meanwhile he thought: good old Zerdai! If I were the marrying kind… For a moment he wavered in his determination to shake her when she had served her turn.
"Nonsense, my lad; of course you're worthy. I'd have gone farther and proposed you for full membership, but the Council pointed out that the constitution allows that only to native-born Mikardanders of our own species. As 'tis, honorary membership will provide you with most of the privileges of membership and few of the obligations."
"I'm overcome with happiness."
"Of course there's the little matter of the initiation."
"What?" Borel controlled his face.
"Yes; waive it they would not, since no king are you. It amounts to little; much ceremony and a night's vigil. I'll coach you in the ritual. And you must obtain ceremonial robes; I'll make you a list."
Borel wished he had hiked the printing charges on the lottery material by another fifty percent.
The initiation proved not only expensive, but also an interplanetary bore as well. Brothers in fantastic robes and weird masks stood about muttering a mystic chant at intervals. Borel stood in front of the Grand Master of the Order, a tall Krishnan with a lined face, which might have been carved from wood for all the expression it bore. Borel responded to interminable questions; since the language was an archaic dialect of Gozashtandou, he did not really know what he was saying half the time. He was lectured on the Order's glorious past, mighty present, and boundless future, and on his duties to protect and defend his interests. He called down all sorts of elaborate astrological misfortunes on his head should he violate his oaths.