Rand turned away. He couldn’t stand illogical people, and Leswick just didn’t like to think logically. Which made Leswick a worse handicap right now than Dombey. Dombey didn’t like to think at all—but, unlike Leswick, he was big and strong. No doubt his strength would come in handy while they were searching for the rescue beacon. Rand figured that that was going to be a long, hard search.
He surveyed his team. It wasn’t too promising.
Leswick hardly looked like the type who would do well at jungle exploring. He was a small, thin man with graying hair and deep-set, shiny eyes. He looked like the kind who would be hopelessly lost and confused outside a library or classroom.
As for Bill Dombey, Rand had privately started calling him Tarzan—King of the Apes. He was simply a huge good-natured animal. Rand stood a solid five-feet-eleven, but Dombey was more than six inches taller. Despite his size, Dombey managed to move gracefully. His face was broad and open, with thick, honest features.
He looked like a good sort. Just not very bright, that was his only trouble.
Leswick said, “How are we going to find the rescue beacon?”
“It ought to be broadcasting a standard signal modulating a thirty-megacycle carrier,” said Rand. “Does that mean anything to you? Well, never mind. What we need to do is rig a detector that will pick up the signal. Then we follow the path the detector points out.”
“Do we have such a detector?” Leswick asked.
“I’m going to build one,” Rand told him. “I’ll use some of the leftover radar parts from the lifeship. We won’t be needing the ship any more, so we can rip out whatever will be handy. Once we know where the rescue beacon is, we’re going to set out on foot. Got that?”
“And what will we eat?” Leswick asked. “It may take days to reach the beacon! Our food supply—”
Rand said, “It might even take months. We’ve got some food capsules in the lifeship’s survival kit, but they won’t last long. After that we start living off the land. We eat whatever we find that looks good to eat.”
“But how will we know if it’s safe?”
Rand let his breath out in a long angry whoosh. “You’re just overflowing with questions today, aren’t you, Leswick?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I like to be careful in everything I do.”
“Well, we’ll test the food the same way we tested the air—by trying it. If something doesn’t make us sick the first time, we’ll keep on eating it. Luckily, I know how to build a machine to give us pure water. But we’ll have to feel our way with the meat and the vegetables and take our luck.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so, yes. What else can we do? Anyway,” Rand said, “there isn’t all that much danger of catching a horrible disease on a strange planet. It turns out that Earthmen get sick only from type germs. The bugs here will probably have as little interest in us as we would in them.”
“Very well,” Leswick said.
“There’s one more thing we ought to settle now,” said Rand. “We’re going to find ourselves in situations where somebody’s going to have to make decisions for the three of us. And fast. We won’t be able to stop to take a vote.”
“You’re saying we ought to pick a leader, then?”
“You bet. A man to give orders when orders need to be given. And I think I ought to be the man, since I’m the only one here with any technical skills. What do you say?”
“It suits me,” said Leswick. “You seem to know what you’re doing. I’ll take your orders.”
Dombey remained silent.
“What about you, Tarzan?” Rand asked.
“What about what?”
“We’re choosing a leader for this little expedition.”
Dombey shrugged. “Don’t matter none to me. But I’m gettin’ pretty hungry. We goin’ to be doin’ much more talkin’?”
Chapter 7
An hour later, Rand crouched over a tangled mass of wires and coils, scratching his head in puzzlement. Leswick stood above him with a mild expression of curiosity on his face. Dombey was munching on a greenish, nearly transparent piece of fruit that he had pulled down from a tree.
Rand was tinkering desperately with the equipment he had taken out of the lifeship. He was trying to turn a radar set into a peak-detector in a hurry, and he was having a hard time.
The factory that had made the lifeship must really be old-fashioned, he thought in annoyance. Instead of using printed circuits and plug-in units for the radar set, the designers of the equipment had used dozens of separate components.
Rand had never seen anything like that before, except in science museums. It was practically prehistoric, as electronics gear went. It made his job ten times as hard as it should have been.
But rules were rules. He knew he could come up with the device he needed, sooner or later. He just had to be patient and go one step at a time.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Leswick asked.
“You won’t understand if I tell you,” Rand snapped.
He felt tense and uncomfortable. The sun was fiercely hot. And there was no shade around the lifeship, because so many trees had been knocked down. He was getting sunburned fast. But he stuck to his work.
He added an extra capacitor. “That might do it,” he said, and stood back.
Mystified, Leswick peered at the confusing and confused-looking network of resistors, condensers, and crystal diodes. “How can you tell one thing from another?” he asked. “How do you know what you’re doing in there?”
“It’s something you learn through sweat and toil, friend. Sweat and toil. Two words you probably haven’t synthesized into your philosophy yet.” Rand slid the copper-shielded case closed with a twitch of his pliers. He picked up the instrument carefully and carried it back inside the ship. Carefully he wired it to the power source and turned it on. It began to hum gently.
So far so good, he thought. We’ll use our wits and we’ll make out okay. Just call me—Robinson Caruso, was that his name? The fellow that lived on the island.
He began to tune the detector.
Fifteen minutes later he stepped out of the ship.
He was dripping wet with perspiration and he carried a scribbled-on sheet of paper. He had to look around for a moment before he found the other two.
Dombey had collected an enormous heap of the pale green fruits. He was squatting over them and eating them in big mouthfuls. He appeared to be enjoying them.
Leswick, meanwhile, was on the far side of the ship, leaning against the scaly gray side of an uprooted tree. The Metaphysical Synthesist seemed deep in thought. He looked at least ten million miles away.
“I’ve found the beacon,” Rand announced loudly. “The detector picked up its signal!”
Leswick snapped out of his dreamy trance. “Is it far from here?”
Rand held up the crude map that he had drawn. “It’s about four hundred miles due east. Unless I made a mistake in figuring and it’s even farther. We’ll keep checking the reading as we travel. The detector will work off a battery.”
“Four hundred miles! But that’s—”
“I know, professor. We aren’t going to get there in one afternoon. And so far as I know it’s all jungle between here and there. Hot, sticky jungle, full of strange beasts and other nuisances.” Rand yawned and wiped away some sweat. “Hey, Tarzan, throw me one of those fruits, will you?”
“Here, boss.” Dombey scooped up one of the fruits in his gigantic hand and tossed it to Rand.
He caught it and looked it over. It was pointed at both ends and plump in the middle. Its skin was thin and such a pale green that he could see right through it to the core. Rand shrugged and took a bite.
The fruit was watery and didn’t have much taste. Eating it was a little like biting into an unripe tomato. But at least it was cool and wet, and Rand had the feeling that it might be healthy to eat. He finished it in four more bites and spat out the core, a small hard red seed.