The Ethical Engineer (9 page)

There were more screams from the slaves, and a few tried to leap over
the side but were clubbed down. The robe-wrapped D'zertanoj were
firmly working their way through the ranks of the captives, pouring
ladlefuls of dark liquid down their throats. The first ones to receive
it were already slumped unconscious or dead, though the chances were
better that they were unconscious since there was no reason for their
captors to kill them after going to such lengths to get them in the
first place. Jason believed this, but the terrified slaves did not
have the solace of his philosophy so struggled on, thinking that they
were fighting for their lives. When Jason's turn came he did not
submit meekly, in spite of his beliefs, and managed to bite some
fingers and kick one man in the stomach before they sat on him, held
his nose and poured a measure of the burning liquid down his throat.
It hurt and he was dizzy, and he tried to will himself to throw up,
but this was the last thing that he remembered.

"Drink some more of this," the voice said, and cold water splashed on
Jason's face and some of it trickled down his throat making him cough.
Something hard was pressing into his back and his wrists hurt. Memory
seeped back slowly, the fight, the capture and the potion that had
been forced upon him. When he opened his eyes he saw a flickering
yellow lamp overhead, hung from a chain. He blinked at it and tried to
gather enough energy to sit up. A familiar face swam in front of the
light and Jason squinted his eyes at it and groaned.

"Is that you Mikah—or are you just part of a nightmare?"

"There is no escape from justice, Jason. It is I, and I have some
grave questions to put to you."

Jason groaned again. "You're real all right. Even in a nightmare I
wouldn't dare dream up any lines like that. But before the questions,
how about telling me a thing or two about the local setup, you should
know something since you have been a slave of the D'zertanoj longer
than I have." Jason realized that the pain in his wrists came from
heavy iron shackles. A chain passed through them and was stapled to a
thick wooden bar on which his head had been resting. "Why the
chains—and what is the local hospitality like?"

Mikah resisted the invitation to impart any vital information and
returned irresistibly to his own topic.

"When I saw you last you were a slave of Ch'aka, and tonight you were
brought in with the other slaves of Ch'aka and chained to the bar
while you were unconscious. There was an empty place next to mine and
I told them I would tend you if they placed you there, and they did.
Now there is something I must know. Before they stripped you I saw
that you were wearing the armor and helmet of Ch'aka. Where is the
man—what happened to him?"

"Me Ch'aka," Jason rasped, and burst out coughing from the dryness in his
throat. He took a long drink of water from the bowl. "You sound very
vindictive, Mikah you old fraud. Where is all the turn-the-other-cheek
stuff now? Don't tell me you could possibly hate the man just because he
hit you on the head, fractured your skull and sold you down the river as a
slave reject? In case you have been brooding over this injustice you can
now be cheered because the evil Ch'aka is no more. He is buried in the
trackless wastes and after all the applicants were sifted out I got the
job."

"You killed him?"

"In a word—yes. And don't think that it was easy since he had all the
advantages and I possessed only my native ingenuity, which luckily
proved to be enough. It was touch and go for a while because when I
tried to assassinate him in his sleep—"

"You
what
?" Mikah Samon hissed.

"Got to him at night. You don't think anyone in his right mind would
tackle a monster like that face-to-face do you? Though it ended up
that way, since he had some neat gadgets for keeping track of people
in the dark. Briefly, we fought, I won, I became Ch'aka, though my
reign was neither long nor noble. I followed you as far as the desert
where I was neatly trapped by a shrewd old bird name of Edipon who
demoted me back to the ranks and took away all my slaves as well. Now
that's my story. So tell me yours, where we are, what goes on here?"

"Assassin! Slave holder!" Mikah reared back, as far as he could under
the restraint of the chain, and pointed the finger of judgment at
Jason. "Two more charges must be added to your role of infamy. I
sicken myself, Jason, that I could ever have felt sympathy for you and
tried to help you. I will still help you, but only to stay alive so
that you may be taken back to Cassylia for trial and execution."

"I like that example of fair and impartial justice—trial
and
execution." Jason coughed again and drained the bowl of water. "Didn't
you ever hear of presumed innocence until proven guilty? It only
happens to be the mainstay of all jurisprudence. And how could you
possibly justify trying me on Cassylia for actions that occurred on
this planet—that aren't crimes here? That's like taking a cannibal
away from his tribe and executing him for anthropophagy."

"What would be wrong with that? The eating of human flesh is a crime
so loathsome I shudder to think of it. Of course a man who does that
must be executed."

"If he slips in the back door and eats one of your relatives, you
certainly have grounds for action. But not if he joins the rest of his
jolly tribe for a good roast of enemy. Don't you see the obvious point
here—that human conduct can only be judged in relation to its
environment? Conduct is relative. The cannibal in his society is just
as moral as the churchgoer in yours."

"Blasphemer! A crime is a crime! There are moral laws that stand above
all human society."

"Oh no there are not, that's just the point where your medieval
morality breaks down. All laws and ideas are historical and relative,
not absolute. They are relevant to their particular time and place and
taken out of context they lose their importance. Within the context of
this grubby society I acted in a most straightforward and honest
manner. I attempted to assassinate my master—which is the only way an
ambitious boy can get ahead in this hard world, and which was
undoubtedly the way Ch'aka himself got the job in the first place.
Assassination didn't work but combat did, and the results were the
same. Once in power I took good care of my slaves, though of course
they didn't appreciate it since they didn't want good care, they only
wanted my job, that being the law of the land. The only thing I really
did wrong was to not live up to my obligations as a slave holder and
keep them marching up and down the beaches forever. Instead I came
looking for you and was trapped and broken back to slavery where I
belong for pulling such a stupid trick."

The door crashed open and harsh sunlight streamed into the windowless
building. "On your feet slaves!" a D'zertano shouted in through the
opening.

A chorus of shufflings and groans broke out as the men stirred to
life. Jason could see now that he was one of twenty slaves shackled to
the long bar, apparently the entire trunk of a good-sized tree. The
man chained at the far end seemed to be a leader of sorts because he
cursed and goaded the others to life. When they were all standing he
snapped his commands in a hectoring tone of voice.

"Come on, come on, first come best food. And don't forget your bowls,
put them away so they can't drop out, remember nothing to eat or drink
all day unless you have a bowl. And let's work together today,
everyone pull his weight, that's the only way to do it. That goes for
all you men, specially you new men. Give them a day's work here and
they give you a day's food...."

"Oh shut up!" someone shouted.

"... And you can't complain about that," the strawboss whined on,
unperturbed. "Now altogether ...
one
... bend down and get your
hands around the bar, get a good grip and ...
two
... lift it clear
of the ground, that's the way. And ...
three
... stand up and out
the door we go."

They shuffled out into the sunlight and the cold wind of dawn bit
through his Pyrran coverall and the remnants of Ch'aka's leather
trappings that Jason had been allowed to keep. His captors had torn
off the claw-studded feet but not bothered the wrappings underneath,
so they hadn't found his boots. This was the only bright spot on an
otherwise unlimited vista of blackest gloom. Jason tried to be
thankful for small blessings, but only shivered some more. As soon as
possible this situation had to be changed since he had already served
his term as slave on this backwoods planet and was cut out for better
things.

On order the slaves lined up against the walls of the yard. Presenting
their bowls like scruffy penitents they accepted dippers of lukewarm
soup from another slave who pushed along a wheeled tub of the stuff:
he was chained to the tub. Jason's appetite vanished when he tasted
the sludge. It was
krenoj
soup, and the desert tubers tasted even
worse—he hadn't thought it was possible—when served up in a broth.
But survival was more important than fastidiousness, so he gulped the
evil stuff down.

Breakfast over they marched out the gate into another compound and
fascinated interest displaced all of Jason's concerns. In the center
of the yard was a large capstan into which the first group of slaves
were already fitting the end of their bar. Jason's group, and the two
others, shuffled into position and seated their bars, making a four
spoked wheel out of the capstan. An overseer shouted and the slaves
groaned and threw their weight against the bars until they shuddered
and began to turn, then trudging slowly they kept the wheel moving.
Once this slogging labor was under way Jason turned his attention to
the crude mechanism that they were powering.

A vertical shaft from the capstan turned a creaking wooden wheel that
set a series of leather belts into motion. Some of them vanished
through openings into a large stone building, while the strongest
strap of all turned the rocker arm of what could only be a
counterbalanced pump. This all seemed like a highly inefficient way to
go about pumping water since there certainly must be natural springs
and lakes somewhere around. The pungent smell that filled the yard was
hauntingly familiar, and Jason had just reached the conclusion that
water couldn't be the object of their labors when a throaty gurgling
came from the standpipe of the pump and a thick black stream bubbled
out.

"Petroleum—of course!" Jason enthused out loud, then bent his
attentions to pushing when the overseer gave him an ugly look and
cracked his whip menacingly.

This was the secret of the D'zertanoj, and the source of their power.
Mountains were visible nearby, and hills, towering above the
surrounding walls. The captured slaves had been drugged so they would
not even know in which direction they had been brought to this hidden
site, or how long the trip was. Here in this guarded valley they
labored to pump the crude oil that their masters used to power their
big desert wagons. Or did they use crude oil for this? The petroleum
was gurgling out in a solid stream now, and running down an open
trough that vanished through the wall into the same building as the
turning belts. And what barbaric devilishness went on in there? A
thick chimney crowned the building and produced clouds of black smoke,
while from the various openings in the wall came a tremendous stench
that threatened to lift the top off his head.

At the same moment that he realized what was going on in the building
a guarded door was opened and Edipon came out, blowing his sizable
nose in a scrap of rag. The creaking wheel turned and when its
rotation brought Jason around again he called out to him.

"Hey, Edipon, come over here. I want to talk to you. I'm the former
Ch'aka, in case you don't recognize me out of uniform."

Edipon gave him one look, then turned away dabbing at his nose. It was
obvious that slaves held no interest for him, no matter what their
position had been before their fall. The slave-driver ran over with a
roar, raising his whip, while the slow rotation of the wheel carried
Jason away. He shouted back over his shoulder.

"Listen to me—I know a lot and can help you." Only a turned back for
an answer and the whip was already whistling down. It was time for the
hard sell. "You had better hear me—because I know that
what comes
out first is best
. Yeow!" This last was involuntary as the whip
landed.

Jason's words were without meaning to the slaves as well as the
overseer who was raising his whip for another blow, but their impact
on Edipon was as dramatic as if he had stepped on a hot coal. He
shuddered to a halt and wheeled about, and even at this distance Jason
could see that a sickly gray tone had replaced his normal browned
color of his skin.

"
Stop the wheel!
" he shouted.

This unexpected command drew the startled attention of everyone. The
gape-mouthed overseer lowered his whip while the slaves stumbled and
halted and the wheel groaned to a stop. In the sudden silence Edipon's
steps echoed loudly as he ran to Jason, halting a hand's breadth away,
his lips drawn back from his teeth with tension as if he were prepared
to bite.

"What was that you said?" He hurled the words at Jason while his
fingers half-plucked a knife from his belt.

Jason smiled, looking and acting calmer than he felt. His barb had
gone home, but unless he proceeded carefully so would Edipon's
knife—into his stomach. This was obviously a very sensitive topic.

"You heard what I said—and I don't think you want me to repeat it in
front of all these strangers. I know what happens here because I come
from a place far away where we do this kind of thing all the time. I
can help you. I can show you how to get more of the best, and how to
make your
caroj
work better. Just try me. Only unchain me from this
bar first and let's get to some place private where we can have a nice
chat."