The ufft had evidently been eavesdropping. It occurred to Link that there probably weren’t many human secrets unknown to the uffts. They lounged about the village streets and they casually napped or seemed to doze in the Householder’s home itself.
“Why should I say that?” asked Link irritably.
“If you want to marry her,” said the ufft, “that’s the start of it.”
“But I just met her!” said Link.
The ufft stirred, in a manner suggesting a shrug by a four-footed animal lying prone on the floor.
“And what are you going to do about Thistlethwaite?” the ufft demanded. “He’s going to escape. It’s all arranged. Three thousand bottles of beer, payable by written contract when he gets to Old Man Addison’s. But he’s mad with you. He says you’re not part of his organization anymore. You’re fired for disobeying orders to stay in the ship. He says he got you for an astrogator—what’s an astrogator?—because he couldn’t get anybody better. He says he can astrogate the ship to where he wants to go by doing everything you did, backwards.” Link thought sulfurous thoughts. The ufft went on, “He says he and Old Man Addison will make history on Sord Three. Why is Sord Three Sord Three? Why not just Sord?”
“Sord’s the sun,” said Link grimly, thinking of something else. “This is the third world from it.”
“That’s silly!” said the ufft. “What did you come here for, anyway? What did you expect to get out of it?”
“In spite,” said Link, “of the remarkable similarity between your interrogation and those of other individuals with equally dubious justification, I merely observe that my motivation is only to be revealed to properly constituted authorities, and refrain from telling you to go fly a kite.”
“What’s a kite?” asked the ufft.
Link said, “Look! I’m supposed to be hung presently. I disapprove of the idea. How about arranging for me to escape along with Thistlethwaite?”
The ufft said, “Five thousand beers?”
“I haven’t got them,” admitted Link.
“Three? Will Old Man Addison pay them for you?”
“I’ve never met him,” said Link.
“What else have you to offer, then?” asked the ufft in a businesslike tone. “I have to get a commission, of course.”
“I made a speech in the ufft city,” said Link hopefully, “on the way here from the ship. It was very well received. I may have some… hm… friends among my listeners who would think it unfortunate if I were hanged.”
The ufft got to its four feet. It stretched itself. It yawned. Then it said, “Too bad!”
It trotted out of the hall.
Link found himself angry. In fact, he raged. Thistlethwaite, if he escaped, might actually try to astrogate the Glamorgan back to Trent by the careful notes Link had made in the ship’s log. It wasn’t too likely he’d manage it, but it was possible. If he did, then Link would have died in vain. He went storming about the building. He hadn’t realized it, but it was now near sunset and what of the sky could be seen through windows was a flaming, crimson red. He came upon an ufft sauntering at ease from one room to another, and a second settling down for a tranquil nap. But he saw no human until he blundered into what must be a kitchen. There Thana bustled about in what must once have been a completely electrified kitchen, now with lamps which were simply floating wicks for illumination. There were two retainer girls assisting her. They used the former equipment as tables, and the cooking was done over a fire of dried-out leaves and twigs.
“Oh,” said Thana cordially. “Hello.”
“Listen!” said Link, “I want to make a protest!”
“I’m terribly busy,” said Thana pleasantly, “and anyhow Harl’s the one to tell about anything that’s missing in the treatment of a guest. Would you excuse me?”
Link changed his approach.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said rather desperately. “I think I know how to identify the kind of… of salt you want to add to bog-iron to make good knives from your unduplied sample.”
“For that,” said Thana warmly, “I’ll stop cooking! What is it, Link?”
“When you put bog-iron in the duplier,” said Link harassedly, “and the duplier makes a knife, the bog-iron crumbles because the iron’s been taken away.” Link was irritated, now. “The idea is to make a series of knives, adding different rock samples to each one, until you get a good knife. Then the rock that contained the alloy-metal you wanted will be crumbled like the iron. See?”
“Wonderful!” said Thana, pleased. “I should have thought of it! I’ll try it tomorrow!”
There was a faint noise outside. It was a shrill, ululating sound. Link paid no attention. Instead, he said urgently:
“And I think I can work out some ways that might get electricity back!”
“That would be marvelous,” said Thana. “You must tell Harl what they are! At dinner, Link. Tell him about them at dinner. He’s busy now, arranging about the torchlight for the hanging. But I thank you very kindly for telling me the trick to make better knives. I’m sure it will work! But I really do have to get dinner ready!”
The noise outside grew louder. There were shouts. It sounded like a first-class riot beginning. Thana tilted her head on one side, listening.
“The uffts are putting on a demonstration,” she said without particular interest. “Why don’t you go watch it, Link? You can tell Harl all your new ideas when we have dinner! I think it’s wonderful of you to think of things like this! You’ve no idea how important it will be! Excuse me now?”
She bustled away. Link ground his teeth. If Thistlethwaite escaped, he must, too. Thistlethwaite might carry out the bargain with Old Man Addison and try to astrogate back to Trent. The emergency wasn’t that he might not make it, but that he might.
Link made his way in the general direction of the tumult. It was dark inside the big building, now. Once away from the feeble oil-wick lamps, he seemed merely to run into walls and partly-opened doors and heavy, misplaced furniture. Once he heard a heavy clattering of small hoofs indoors, somewhere inside the building. A remarkable number of uffts seemed to be racing madly up stairs and down a hallway to the open air. The sound of their hoofs changed as they went out-of-doors. The noises from outside changed as they left the door open behind them. Link had heard only the background noise, a continual shrill yapping, but now he heard individual voices.
“Down with humans! Down With the Murderers of Interstellar Travelers! Uffts forever! Men go home!” There was a particularly loud outburst. “We want freedom! We want freedom!” Then a squealing from a myriad voices from small pig-like throats. “Yah! Yah! Yah! Men have hands! Yah! Yah! Yah!”
Link reached the open door. Darkness had fallen with the suddenness only observable in the tropics of some ten thousand planets. It occurred to him that the troop of uffts he’d heard in the building was probably Thistlethwaite’s special rescue squad. If they’d had to rush past or through a human guard at the doorway, such a guard would now be in poor condition to resist his own exit. And it was dark and there was enough confusion to cover one man, even a man supposed to be hanged, while he left the householder’s residence.
He was right. Starlight showed hundreds of small, rotund bodies galloping madly up and down the street, shrilling squealed insults at the human race in general and Harl in particular. There was one especial focus of tumult. Three men on unicorns were its center. They were apparently Harl’s retainers returning from a hunt for an alleged new deposit of bog-iron. They’d been caught in the village street by the suddenly erupting disorder. They were surrounded by uffts, running around them like a merry-go-round, squealing denunciations at the tops of their voices.