The entire group muttered together.
"Why do you want a sustenator?"
"Wait and see," said Barch shortly.
There was further muttering. "And what will become of us?" came the question.
Barch grinned in spite of his irritation; they were disarmingly like a dozen little porkers, fearful of the trip to the market. "That all depends on whether the Klau catch us again. Right now you're escaped slaves."
Again they muttered among themselves. One jumped up on the catwalk, ran to the pilot's dome. Barch followed curiously. The fat man looked in at the locator, glanced at the broken chain, then, ignoring Barch, ran briskly back to his fellows. Barch watched with puzzlement.
Kerbol muttered, "That's the worst about the Lenape; you can do nothing to their satisfaction."
Barch stared. "Are those Lenape?"
Kerbol grumbled and muttered.
Barch went slowly aft. He had visualized the Lenape as physically equivalent to their reputed mental ability.
In the hold the Lenape were talking heatedly all together; none heeded him. Where Barch before had imagined torpor in the opal eyes, now he thought to see depths of subtle wisdom. They noticed him; all fell silent. "You are Lenape?" asked Barch.
"We are Lenape."
"Then you understand something of how these things work?" Barch indicated the sustenators.
The Lenape seemed surprised, a ripple of expression passed around their faces. "Yes, of course."
"And if this barge broke down, you could fix it?"
There was a stir of amusement. "It depends a great deal on the extent of the damage, on the availability of replacement parts, tools."
Barch nodded. "Fine. Excellent."
They were passing over the sea and the mud-flats; the mountains of the Palamkum rose ahead, vague black objects swaddled and blurred in the mist.
Barch pointed. "That's your future home, until we convert a pair of barges to a spaceship and leave Magarak."
The Lenape listened blankly. The foremost said, "You think to fly space in a barge?"
"In two barges, face to face, welded together."
"Impossible."
Barch felt a sudden sinking of the diaphragm. "Why?"
"The Klau will never allow it."
"The Klau didn't allow me to steal this barge."
"The necessary components and accessories are numerous, hard to acquire."
"Like the sustenators? Like the two barges? Like the technical help? Like a secure place to work?"
"Exactly."
"All those we've got."
There was a moment's silence. Barch was the focus of a dozen curious stares. Then the first Lenape said, "A space voyage would be interminably long. The barges are insufficiently powered to generate second-order acceleration; you would float clumsily through first-order space, the deck pushing at your feet."
"Five years in space is no worse than five years on Magarak. At the end of five years we're home. And maybe you can work out some system to give us more speed."
The Lenape muttered nervously. "A grand concept. Is it practicable?"
Barch said angrily, "You don't act like you want to get home."
"No, no-Lenau is life to us!"
"A few months ago a dozen Lenape escaped Magarak."
"A simple affair for them; they merely bred a secret blister into the rind of the space-ship; that was all there was to it… None of this painful fitting and piecing and improving."
"Any fool can spear fish in a barrel." And Barch said in a disgusted voice, "Are you with me or not?"
The little round men muttered anxiously together, all speaking at once. Barch failed to understand how communication of any sort was possible.
The foremost turned up his face. "We will work with you; there is no alternative."
Barch nodded in grim jocularity. "I thought you'd come around. Pass up those corpses; I'll drop them over the side now."
The next day Barch carried the locator back to the table in the hall, checked Palkwarkz Ztvo to assure himself that the two barges in Big Hole showed no tattletale sparks.
The head Lenape, whose name Barch had been unable to pronounce and so had called him "Porridge," came into the hall carrying a sheet of parchment. He marched across the room, lay the sheet triumphantly before Barch. "This," he said, "represents the needs incident to any such project as you envision."
Barch stared at the meaningless symbols. "Is each one of these marks something you need?"
Porridge bounced up and down jubilantly. "Yes. If you remember, I was of the opinion yesterday that the project was unrealistic."
Barch said, "Let me have your pencil, or whatever it was you wrote with." Porridge handed him a flexible fiber. "Now, said Barch, "what is this?" He pointed.
Porridge brushed the first division with his finger. "Lavatory equipment, with spares. Shielded running lights, automatic pilot, and star-finder, communication equipment-"
Barch sat listening in annoyance. "Porridge," he said finally, "imagine us in space with nothing in the barge but the sustenator, which produces our food and water."
"Disagreeable," said Porridge.
"Would we survive?"
"The question of survival is not the point under discussion."
"Wrong. That's what I'm talking about. Every time I go out stealing things, I may or may not survive. And with me dead there's nobody else here with enough brains to get us off Magarak. So"-Barch scratched a cross through the first division-"out. Unnecessary. What is this?"
In a subdued voice Porridge said, "These are tools. Some I cannot translate, since they are very specialized. This is a hoist. This is a wire-splicer. These are various kinds of hammers, gauges, rotary buffers. All are quite necessary."
Barch sat back angrily. "What's wrong with you, Porridge? Do you think you're in a warehouse? We're out in the mountains. I thought Lenape were intelligent people. Why don't you ask for cushioned workbenches, automatic power-drills?"
"We did," said Porridge. "Right there."
Barch snorted. "You're worse than the Lekthwans-you've got yourselves in a mental rut; you can't think anything but what someone's thought for the last million years. Haven't you ever heard of the word improvise?" Porridge screwed up his face.
"Buffer-what do you want a buffer for? Forget it! Hammers? Use a rock. Hoist? Run a sling under that little Klau raft." Barch crumpled the parchment in disgust. "I'll tell you what you're going to get: welding equipment, deck plates, and fuel for the engines. We'll probably have another barge or two before we're done; you can strip it of any spare parts you need."
Porridge sat down heavily, kneaded his forehead. "You have a peculiar concept of comfortable space-travel."
"I'm not interested in comfort. Now you go back, start installing the sustenators, as many as the group of us will need. Also bring one down here, set it running; then we won't need to leave the cave for food, and we'll be safe from Klau hunters."
Porridge departed. Barch, looking after him, saw Tick come diffidently into the room. "Tick," called Barch, "come over here."
Tick sidled up to the bench without much enthusiasm. Barch looked into his long sallow face. "What's the trouble?"
"I feel the pressure of my time. I sense the odor of death. If I once more owned the charm of my destiny, I would be secure when all else dissolves in fire and ruin."
Barch said thoughtfully. "From one point of view-yes. But the charm is surely as effective in my possession as it is in yours. Now sit down, and tell me the best place to steal welding supplies."