The Ethical Engineer (10 page)

Edipon's thoughts were obvious. He chewed his lip and looked hotly at
Jason, fingering the edge of his knife. Jason only returned a smile of
pure innocence and tapped his fingers happily on the bar, just marking
time while he waited to be released. Yet in spite of the cold there
was a rivulet of sweat trickling down his spine. He was gambling
everything on Edipon's intelligence, that the man's curiosity would
overcome the immediate desire to silence the slave who knew so much
about things so secret, hoping that he would remember that slaves
could always be killed, and that it wouldn't hurt to ask a few
questions first. Curiosity won and the knife dropped back into the
sheath while Jason let his breath out in a relieved sigh. It had been
entirely too close, even for a professional gambler; his own life on
the board was a little higher stakes than he enjoyed playing for.

"Release him from the bar and bring him to me," Edipon ordered, then
strode agitatedly away. The other slaves watched wide-eyed as the
blacksmith was rushed out, and with much confusion and shouted orders
Jason's chain was cut from the bar where it joined the heavy staple.

"What are you doing?" Mikah asked, and one of the guards backhanded
him to the ground. Jason just smiled and touched his finger to his
lips as his chain was released and they led him away. He was free from
bondage and he would stay that way if he could convince Edipon that he
would be better off in some capacity other than dumb labor.

The room they led him to contained the first touches of decoration or
self-indulgence that he had seen on this planet. The furniture was
carefully constructed, with an occasional bit of carving to brighten
it, and there was a woven cover on the bed. Edipon stood by a table,
tapping his fingers nervously on the dark polished surface. "Lock him
up," he ordered the guards, and Jason was secured to a sturdy ringbolt
that projected from the wall. As soon as the guards were gone he stood
before Jason and drew his knife. "Tell me what you know or I will kill
you at once."

"My past is an open book to you, Edipon. I come from a land where we
know all the secrets of nature—"

"What is the name of this land? Are you a spy from Appsala?"

"I couldn't very well be one since I have never heard of the place."
Jason pulled at his lower lip, wondering just how intelligent Edipon
was, and just how frank he could be with him. This was no time to get
tangled up in lies about planetary geography: it might be best to try
him on a small dose of the truth. "If I told you I came from another
planet, another world in the sky up among the stars, would you believe
me?"

"Perhaps. There are many old legends that our forefathers came from a
world beyond the sky, but I have always dismissed this as religious
drivel, fit only for women."

"In this case the girls happen to be right. Your planet was settled by
men whose ships crossed the emptiness of space as your
caroj
pass
over the desert. Your people have forgotten about that and lost the
science and knowledge you once had, but in other worlds the knowledge
is still held."

"Madness!"

"Not at all, it is science, though many times confused as being the
same thing. I'll prove my point. You know that I could never have been
inside your mysterious building out there, and I imagine you can be
sure no one has told me its secrets. Yet I'll bet you that I can
describe fairly accurately what is in there—not from seeing the
machinery, but from knowing what must be done to oil in order to get
the products you need. Do you want to hear?"

"Proceed," Edipon said, sitting on a corner of the table and balancing
the knife loosely in his palm.

"I don't know what you call it, the device, but in the trade it is a
pot still used for fractional distillation. Your crude oil runs into a
tank of some kind, and you pipe it from there to a retort, some big
vessel that you can seal airtight. Once it is closed you light a fire
under the thing and try to get all the oil to an even temperature. A
gas rises from the oil and you take it off through a pipe and run it
through a condenser, probably more pipe with water running over it.
Then you put a bucket under the open end of the pipe and out of it
drips the juice that you burn in your
caroj
to make them move."

Edipon's eyes opened wider and wider while Jason talked until they
stuck out of his head like boiled eggs. "Demon!" he screeched and
tottered towards Jason with the knife extended. "You couldn't have
seen, not through stone walls, yet only my family have seen, no
others—I'll swear to that!"

"Keep cool, Edipon, I told you that we have been doing this stuff for
years in my country." He balanced on one foot, ready for a kick at the
knife in case the old man's nerves did not settle down. "I'm not out
to steal your secrets, in fact they are pretty small potatoes where I
come from since every farmer has a still for cooking up his own mash
and saving on taxes. I'll bet I can even put in some improvements for
you, sight unseen. How do you monitor the temperature on your cooking
brew? Do you have thermometers?"

"What are thermometers?" Edipon asked, forgetting the knife for the
moment, drawn on by the joys of a technical discussion.

"That's what I thought. I can see where your bootleg joyjuice is going
to take a big jump in quality, if you have anyone here who can do some
simple glassblowing. Though it might be easier to rig up a coiled
bi-metallic strip. You're trying to boil off your various fractions,
and unless you keep an even and controlled temperature you are going
to have a mixed brew. The thing you want for your engines are the most
volatile fractions, the liquids that boil off first like gasoline and
benzene. After that you raise the temperature and collect kerosene for
your lamps and so forth right on down the line until you have a nice
mass of tar left to pave your roads with. How does that sound to you?"

Edipon had forced himself into calmness, though a jumping muscle in
his cheek betrayed his inner tension. "What you have described is the
truth, though you were wrong on some small things. But I am not
interested in your thermometer nor in improving our water-of-power, it
has been good enough for my family for generations and it is good
enough for me...."

"I bet you think that line is original?"

"... There is something that you might be able to do that would bring
you rich rewards. We can be generous when needs be. You have seen our
caroj
and ridden on one, and seen me go into the shrine to intercede
with the sacred powers to make us move. Can you tell me what power
moves the
caroj
?"

"I hope this is the final exam, Edipon, because you are stretching my
powers of extrapolation. Stripping away all the
shrines
and
sacred
powers
I would say that you go into the engine room to do a piece of
work with very little praying involved. There could be a number of
ways of moving those barns, but let's think of the simplest. This is
top of the head now, so no penalties if I miss any of the fine points.

"Internal combustion is out, I doubt if you have the technology to
handle it, plus the fact there was a lot to do about the water tank
and it took you almost an hour to get under way. That sounds like you
were getting up a head of steam—the safety valve! I forgot about
that. So it is steam. You go in, lock the door of course, then open a
couple of valves until the fuel drips into the firebox, then you light
it. Maybe you have a pressure gauge, or maybe you just wait until the
safety valve pops to tell you if you have a head of steam. Which can
be dangerous since a sticking valve could blow the whole works right
over the mountain.

"Once you have the steam you crack a valve to let it into the
cylinders and get the thing moving. After that you just enjoy the
trip, of course making sure the water is feeding to your boiler all
right, that your pressure stays up, your fire is hot enough, all your
bearings are lubricated and the rest...."

Jason looked on astounded as Edipon did a little jig around the room,
holding his robe up above his bony knees. Bouncing with excitement he
jabbed his knife into the table top and rushed over to Jason and
grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him until his chain rattled.

"Do you know what you have done?" he asked. "Do you know what you have
said?"

"I know well enough. Does this mean that I have passed the exam? Was I
right?"

"I don't know if you are right or not. I have never seen the inside of
one of the Appsalan devil-boxes." He danced around the room again.
"You know more about their ... what do you call it,
engine
... than
I do. I have only spent my life tending them and cursing the people
of Appsala who keep the secret from us. But you will reveal it to us!
We will build our own engines and if they want water-of-power they
will have to pay dearly for it."

"Would you mind being a little bit clearer," Jason pleaded. "I have
never heard anything so confused in my entire life."

"I will show you, man from a far world, and you will reveal the
Appsalan secrets to us. I see the dawn of a new day for Putl'ko
arriving." He opened the door and shouted for the guards, and for his
son, Narsisi, who arrived as they were unlocking Jason who recognized
him as the same droop-eyed and sleepy looking D'zertano who had been
helping Edipon to drive their ungainly vehicle.

"Seize this chain my son and keep your club ready to kill this slave
if he makes any attempt to escape. Otherwise do not harm him, for he
is very valuable. Come."

He tugged on the chain, but Jason only dug his heels in and did not
move. They looked at him, astonished.

"Just a few things before we go. The man who is to bring the new day
to Putl'ko is not a slave, let us get that straight before this
operation goes any further. We'll work out something with chains or
guards so I can't escape, but the slavery thing is out."

"But—you are not one of us, therefore you must be a slave."

"I've just added a third category to your social order. Employee.
Though reluctant, I am still an employee, skilled labor, and I intend
to be treated that way. Figure it out for yourself. Kill a slave and
what do you lose? Very little if there is another slave in the pens
that can push in the same place. But kill me and what do you get?
Brains on your club—and they do you no good at all there."

"Say, Dad, does he mean I can't kill him?" Narsisi looked puzzled as
well as sleepy.

"No, he doesn't mean that. He means if we kill him there is no one else
that can do the work he is to do for us. I can understand him and I do not
like it. There are only slaves and slavers, anything else is against the
natural order. But he has us trapped between
satano
and the sand-storm
so we must allow him some freedoms. Bring the slave now ... I mean the
employee ... and we will see if he can do the things he has promised. If
he does not,
I
will have the pleasure of killing him because I do not
like his revolutionary ideas."

They marched single file to a locked and guarded building with immense
doors, which were pulled open to reveal the massive forms of seven
caroj
.

"Look at them," Edipon hissed and tugged at his nose. "The finest and
most beautiful of constructions, striking fear into our enemies'
hearts, carrying us fleetly across the sands, bearing on their backs
immense loads and only three of the things are able to move."

"Engine trouble?" Jason asked lightly.

Edipon grumbled, cursed and fumed under his breath and led the way to
an inner courtyard where stood four immense black boxes painted with
death-heads, splintered bones, fountains of blood and cabalistic
symbols all of a sinister appearance.

"Those swine in Appsala take our water-of-power and give nothing in
return. Oh yes, they let us use their engines, but after running for a
few months the cursed things stop and will not go again, then we must
bring them back to the city to exchange for a new one, and pay again
and again."

"A nice racket," Jason said, looking at the sealed covering on the
engines. "Why don't you just crack into them and fix them yourself,
they can't be very complex."

"That is death!" Edipon gasped, and both D'zertanoj recoiled from the
boxes at the thought. "We have tried that, in my father's father's
day, since we are not superstitious like the slaves and know that
these are man-made not god-made. However the tricky serpents of
Appsala hide their secrets with immense cunning. If any attempt is
made to break the covering horrible death leaks out and fills the air.
Men who breathe the air die, and even those who are solely touched by
it develop immense blisters and die in pain. The man of Appsala
laughed when this happened to our people and after that raised the
price even higher."

Jason circled one of the boxes, examining it with interest, trailing
Narsisi behind him at the end of the chain. The thing was higher than
his head and almost twice as long. A heavy shaft emerged through
openings on opposite sides, probably the power takeoff for the wheels.
Through an opening in the side he could see inset handles and two
small colored disks, and above this were three funnel-shaped openings
shaped and painted like mouths. By standing on tiptoe Jason looked on
top but there was only a flanged, sooty opening that must be for
attachment of a smokestack. There was only one more opening, a
smallish one in the rear, and no other controls on the garish
container.

"I'm beginning to get the picture, but you will have to tell me how
you work the controls."

"Death before that," Narsisi shouted. "Only my family—"

"Will you shut up!" Jason shouted right back. "Remember? You're not
allowed to browbeat the help anymore. There are no secrets here. Not
only that, but I probably know more about this thing than you do just
by looking at it. Oil, water and fuel go in these three openings, you
poke a light in somewhere, probably in that smoky hole under the
controls, open one of those valves for fuel supply, another one is to
make the engine go slower and faster, and the third is for your water
feed. The disks are indicators of some kind." Narsisi paled and
stepped back. "So keep the trap shut while I talk to your dad."