"Why pick the one thing she can't burn? I'd settle for alcohol and oxygen."
"As long as you haven't got it, why not wish for the best?"
"Because we agreed to play this game for keeps. Now we've got to go through the motions of trying to make some fuel, from now till they find us. That's why I say alcohol and oxygen. I'll whomp up some sort of a still and start cooking alky while you and Matt figure out how to produce liquid oxygen with just your bare hands and a ship's equipment."
"How long do you figure it will take you to distil several tons of alcohol with what you can rig up?"
"That's the beauty of it. I'll still be working away at it, like a good little boy, busy as a moonshiner, when they come to rescue us. Say, did I ever tell you about Uncle Bodie and the moonshiners? It seems-"
"Look here," interrupted Matt, "how would you go about cooking up some maple syrup-here?"
"Huh? Why fret about it? We're sick of hotcakes."
"So am I, but I want to know how you can make maple syrup right here. Or, rather, how the natives can do it?"
"Are you nuts, or is this a riddle?"
"Neither one. I just remembered something I had overlooked. You said there wasn't any more maple syrup, and I was about to say that there was still plenty in Thurlow's room." Two days before, it had been Mart's turn to go into the city. As usual he had visited Thurlow's sickroom, j His friend Th'wing had been on watch and had left him alone with the lieutenant for twenty minutes or so.
During the interval the patient had roused and Matt had wished to offer him a drink; there were several drinking bladders at hand.
The first one Matt picked up turned out to be charged with maple syrup, and so did the next and the next-the entire row, in fact. Then he found the one he wanted, lying on the couch. "I didn't think anything about it at the time- I was busy with the lieutenant. But this is what bothers me: He's been taking quite a lot of the syrup; you might say he's been living on nothing else. I opened the first can when we first took it to him, and I opened both the other cans myself, as needed-Th'wing couldn't cope with the can opener. So I know that the syrup was almost gone.
"Where did the rest of the syrup come from?"
"Why, I suppose the natives made it," answered Oscar. "It wouldn't be too hard to get sugar from some of the plants around here. There's a sort of grass somewhat like sugar cane, up near the Poles; they could find something of the sort."
"But, Oz, this was maple syrup!"
"Huh? It couldn't be. Your taster has gone haywire."
"It was maple, I tell you."
"Well, what if it was-mind you, I don't concede that you can get the true maple flavor this side of Vermont, but what difference does it make?"
"I think we've been overlooking a bet. You were talking about distilling alcohol; I'll bet the natives can supply alcohol in any quantities."
"Oh." Oscar thought about it. "You're probably right. They are clever about things like that-that gunk they use to jell mud and those solvents they cleaned the Tart with. Kitchen chemists."
"Maybe they aren't kitchen chemists. Maybe they are the real thing."
"Huh?" said Tex. "What do you mean, Matt?"
"Just what I said. We want 'go' juice for the Tart-maybe if we just had sense enough to ask the mother-of-many for it, we'd get it."
Oscar shook his head. "I wish you were right, Matt. Nobody has more respect for the Little People than I have, but there isn't a rocket fuel we can use that doesn't involve one or more liquefied gases. We might even make them understand what we needed but they wouldn't have the facilities for it."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Well, shucks, Matt, liquid oxygen-even liquid air-calls for high pressures and plenty of power, and high-pressure containers for the intermediate stages. The Little People make little use of power, they hardly use metal." |
"They don't use power, eh? How about those orange \ lights?" j
"Well, yes, but that can't involve much power."
"Can you make one? Do you know how they work?" "No, but-"
"What I'm trying to get at is that there may be more 1 ways of doing engineering than the big, muscley, noisy ways we've worked out. You've said yourself that we don't really ; know the natives, not even around the poles. Let’s’ at least ask!"
"I think he's got something there, Oz," said Tex. "Let's ask."
Oscar was looking very thoughtful. "I've realized for some time that our friends here were more civilized than the ones around the colonies, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it."
"What is civilization?"
"Never mind the philosophy-let's get going." Oscar unlocked the ship's outer door and spoke to a figure, waiting in what was to her bright sunlight and busy looking at the j pictures in a 1971 Saturday Evening Post. "Hey, girlie! Wouldst thou graciously conduct us to the home of thy mother?"
It was maple syrup. Both Tex and Oscar agreed. Th'wing explained quite readily that, when the supply ran low, they had made more, using the original terrestrial stuff as a sample.
Oscar went to see the city mother, taking with him a
bottle of grain alcohol salvaged from the medical supplies of the Gary. Matt and Tex had to sweat it out, for it had been agreed that Oscar did best with her nibs when not accompanied. He returned after more than two hours, looking stunned.
"What gives, Oz? What did you find out?' Matt demanded.
"It's bad news," said Tex. "I can tell from your face."
"No, it's not bad news."
"Then spill it, man, spill it-you mean they can do it?"
Oscar swore softly in Venerian. "They can do anything!"
"Back off and try again," advised Tex. "They can't play a harmonica. I know; I let one try. Now tell us."
"I started in by showing her the ethyl alcohol and tried to explain that we still had a problem and asked her if her people could make the stuff. She seemed to think it was a silly question-just sniffed it and said they could. Then I positively strained myself trying to act out liquid oxygen, first telling her that there were two different things in air, one inert and one active. The -best I could do was to use their words for living' and 'dead.' I told her I wanted the living part to be like water. She cut me off and sent for one of her people. They talked back and forth for several minutes and I swear I could understand only every second or third word and could not even get the gist of it. It was a part of their language totally new to me. Then the other old girl leaves the room.
"We waited. She asked me if we would be leaving soon if we got what we wanted. I said, yes if- then she asked me to do her the favor of taking Burke along; she was apologetic about it but firm. I said we would."
"I'm glad of that," said Matt. "I despise Stinky's insides, but it sticks in my craw to leave him to die here. He ought to have a trial."
"Keep quiet, Matt," said Tex. "Who cares about Stinky? Go on, Oscar."
"After quite a wait, the other old girl came back, with a bladder-just an ordinary bladder by the appearance, but darker than a drinking bladder. Her nibs hands it to me
and asks me if this is what I wanted. I said sorry but I did not want water. She squeezed a few drops out on my hand." Oscar held out his hand. "See that? It burned me."
"It actually was liquid oxygen?"
"That or liquid air. I didn't have any way to test, think it was oxygen. But get this-the bladder wasn't even cold. And it didn't fume until she squeezed out the drop. The other gal was carrying it around as casually as you carry a hot-water bottle."
Oscar stared off into space a moment. "It beats me," 1 said. "The only thing I can think of is catalyst chemist -they must have catalyst chemistry down to the poi where they can do things without fuss that we do with heat and pressure."
"Why try to figure it out?" asked Tex. "You'll probably get the wrong answer. Just let it go that they've forgotten more about chemistry than we'll ever learn. And we get the 'go’ juice."
For two days a steady procession of little folk had formed a double line from the water's edge to the Astarte, bearing^ full bladders toward the ship and returning with empty ones. Thurlow was already abroad, still attended by his patient little nurses. Burke was brought to the ship under escort and turned loose. The cadets let him alone, which seemed to disconcert him. He looked the ship over-it was the first he had heard of it-and finally sought out Jensen.