Lhin fought for words as he tried to explain. His people had nothing like that—their atomics had worked from a different angle, since uranium was almost nonexistent on the moon, and they had used a direct application of it. But the principles were plain to him, even from what he could see outside; he could feel the way it worked in his head.
“I feel. When I first grew, I could fix that. It is the way I think, not the way I learn, though I have read all the records. For three hundred million of your years, my people have learned it—now I feel-it.”
“Three hundred million years! I knew your race was old when you told me you were born talking and reading, but—galloping dinosaurs!”
“My people saw those things on your world, yes,” Lhin assured him solemnly. “Then I shall fix?”
Slim shook his head in confusion and handed over a tool kit without another word. “Three hundred million years, Fats, and during almost all that time they were further ahead than we are now. Figure that one out. When we were little crawling things living off dinosaur eggs, they were flitting from planet to planet—only I don’t suppose they could stay very long; six tunes normal gravity for them. And now, just because they had to stay on a light world and their air losses made them gather here where things weren’t normal, Lhin’s all that’s left.”
“Yeah, and how does that make him a mechanic?” “Instinct. In the same amount of time, look at the instincts the animals picked up—what to eat, enemy smells, caring for their young… He has an instinct for machinery; he doesn’t know all about it, probably, but he can instinctively feel how a thing should work.1 Add to that the collection of science records he was showing me and the amount of reading he’s probably done, and there should be almost nothing he couldn’t do to a machine.”
There wasn’t much use hi arguing, Fats decided, as he watched what was happening. The monkey either fixed things or they never would leave now. Lhin had taken snips and disconnected the control box completely; now he was taking that to pieces, one thing at a time. With a curious deftness, he unhooked wires, lifted out tubes, and uncoupled transformers.
It seemed simple enough to him. They had converted energy from the atomic fuel, and they used certain forces to ionize matter, control the rate of ionization, feed the ions to the rocket tubes, and force them outward at high speed through helices. An elementary problem in applied electronics, to govern the rate and control the ionization forces.
With small quick hands he bent wires into coils, placed other coils hi relation, and coupled a tube to the combination. Around the whole, other coils and tubes took shape, then a long feeder connected to the pipe that carried the compound to be ionized, and bus bars to the energy intakes. The injectors that handled the feeding of ions were needlessly complicated, but he let them alone, since they were workable as they were. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes.
“It will work now. But use care when you first try it. Now it makes all work, not a little as it did before.”
Slim inspected it. “That all? What about this pile of stuff you didn’t use?” “There was no need. It was very poor. Now it is good.” As best he could he explained to Slim what happened when it was used now; before, it would have taken a well-trained technician to describe, even with the complicated words at his command. But what was there now was the product of a science that had gone beyond the stumbling complications of first attempts. Something was to be done, and was done, as simply as possible. Slim’s only puzzle was that it hadn’t been done that way in the first place—a normal reaction, once the final simplification is reached. He nodded.
“Good. Fats, this is the business. You’ll get about 99.99 percent efficiency now, instead of the 20 percent maximum before. You’re all right, Lhin.”
Fats knew nothing of electronics, but it had sounded right as Lhin explained, and he made no comment. Instead, he headed for the control room. “Okay, we’ll leave here, then. So long, monkey.”
Slim gathered up the wire and handed it to Lhin, accompanying him to the air lock. On the ground, as the locks closed, the Moon man looked up and managed an Earth smile. “I shall open the doors above for you to go through. And you are paid, and all is fan:, not so? Then—so long, Slim. The Great Ones love you, that you have given my people back to me.”
“Adios,” Slim answered, and waved, just before the doors came shut. “Maybe we’ll be back sometime and see how you make out.”
Back in the cave, Lhin fondled the copper and waited for the sounds the rockets would make, filled with mixed emotions and uncertainties. The copper was pure ecstasy to him, but there were thoughts in Fats’ mind which were not all clear. Well, he had the copper for generations to come; what happened to his people now rested on the laps of the Great Ones.
He stood outside the entrance, watching the now-steady rocket blast upward and away, carrying with it the fate of his race. If they told of the radioactives, slavery and extinction. If they remained silent, perhaps a return to former greatness, and passage might be resumed to other planets, long deserted even at the height of their progress; but now planets bearing life and intelligence instead of mere jungles. Perhaps, in time, and with materials bought from other worlds with ancient knowledge, even a solution that would let them restore their world to its ancient glory, as they had dreamed before hopelessness and the dark wings of a race’s night had settled over them.
As he watched, the rocket spiraled directly above him, cutting the light off and on with a shadow like the beat of wings from the mists of antiquity, when winged life had filled the air of the moon. An omen, perhaps, those sable wings that reached up and passed through the roof as he released the slides, then went skimming out, leaving all clear behind. But whether a good omen or ill, he had not decided.
He carried the copper wire back to the nursery.
And on the ship, Slim watched Fats wiggle and try to think, and there was amusement on his face. “Well, was he good? As good as any human, perhaps?”
“Yeah. All right, better. I’ll admit anything you want. He’s as good as I am—maybe he’s better. That satisfy you?”
“No.” Slim was beating the iron while it was hot. “What about those radioactives?”
Fats threw more power into the tubes, and gasped as the new force behind the rockets pushed him back into his seat. He eased up gently, staring straight ahead. Finally he shrugged and turned back to Slim.
“Okay, you win. The monkey keeps his freedom and I keep my lip buttoned. Satisfied now?”
“Yeah.” Slim was more than satisfied. To him, also, things seemed an omen of the future, and proof that idealism was not altogether folly. Some day the wings of dark prejudice and contempt for others might lift from all Earth’s Empire, as they were lifting from Fats’ mind. Perhaps not in his time, but eventually; and intelligence, not race, would rule.
“Well satisfied, Fats,” he said. “And you don’t need to worry about losing too much. We’ll make all the money we can ever spend from the new principles of Lhin’s hookup; I’ve thought of a dozen applications already. What do you figure on doing with your share?” Fats grinned. “Be a damned fool. Help you start your propaganda again and; go around kissing Marshies and monkeys. Wonder what our little monkey’s thinking?” Lhin wasn’t thinking, then; he’d solved the riddle of the factors hi Fats’ mind, and he knew what the decision would be. Now he was making copper sulphate, and seeing dawn come up where night had been too long. There’s something beautiful about any dawn, and this was very lovely to him.