~*~
Thinker’s hut provided him both home and workshop. The stone walls of the structure were much older than the villager who lived there, but the slate roof looked to be newer and was supported by thick timbers of differing ages. From these hung baskets and clay jars on ropes, drying herbs, smoked meats, and the balding man’s laundry. The clothing smelled of smoke and exhibited small burns and scorch marks along with more common wear and tear.
He led them to a far corner of the relatively large, single room dwelling, which contained a small fireplace with a chimney. Both appeared to be recent additions. MO-126 added them to the growing list of this village’s anomalies.
“This is where I do most of my tinkering,” Thinker said. “I have several different kinds of round things.” He pointed to wheels of various sizes, some solid, others with holes, some grooved, and one with notches suspiciously like gear teeth. “And I have long things.” He indicated shafts, poles carved in various ways, and some clay pipes. “If you connect two round things with a solid, straight, long thing, you can make a box easier to move.” He ambled over to a table that held smaller items of wood, stone, cloth, and clay. “And here are some other things. I really should come up with better names for all of them, I suppose, but I just never seem to get around to it.”
“What are you working on over here by the fire?” Tam asked.
MO-126 looked to where his partner pointed and immediately noticed what caught his interest. A hammer stone rested on a flat rock by the fireplace. Several irregularly shaped nuggets of native copper lay next to it.
“Oh, yes. I just started looking into this.” He picked up one of the copper nuggets. “I’ve discovered that this kind of rock has some special properties. You can shape it, even bang it flat. It’s kind of brittle after you do, but I’ve found that if you heat it first, it works better. You have to get it quite hot, though, and I’m still having some trouble with that, but I’m sure I’ll work out something.”
Metallurgy, MO-126 thought. This guy is going to invent metallurgy. The same thought obviously occurred to Tam because his expression changed, just for a moment, to something not unlike panic. He recovered quickly, but he must have been wondering what Field Ops and the PM would make of his report and whether they would somehow find him responsible. This many technology-development and scientific-discovery faults had never been found in one place at one time before.
“I’ve been thinking that a thin sheet of this around the inside of the center of a round thing would make them roll even better, don’t you?” Thinker asked. He reached into a box and withdrew a piece of pounded copper, which he held out for Tam to examine.
The trader recoiled, refusing to touch the metal. “Aren’t you afraid of offending your guardian spirits with these new things? Don’t you think it’s being disrespectful?”
The primitive human eyed him quizzically. “Why?”
“Well, because these things are not part of your traditions. If your ancestors wanted you to have rolling boxes or to use strange rocks, they would have passed these things down to you.”
“You know, I never considered that,” Thinker said.
“I think you should,” Tam said. He glanced to his canine companion and presented a quick, self-satisfied smirk. It just as quickly dissolved into something else.
“No,” Thinker said.
“No, what?” said the trade android.
“I don’t think our ancestors’ spirits have a problem with it. If they did, they wouldn’t allow me to get these ideas.”
“Are you sure? Perhaps the storm was their warning.”
The balding villager cocked an appropriately skeptical eyebrow. “No. It must have been a big storm since it also hit Tallie’s village, wherever that is. If it was a warning to me or our village, it wouldn’t have affected others.”
“Nice try,” MO-126 said to his partner, “but he’s got you there. What else you got?”
The trader glanced at his dog with a look that suggested he wished he had a choke chain. “If you’re not going to be helpful—”
“You want help? Give up. There’s nothing you can do. It’s not your fault that this guy is clever. The PM isn’t going to blame you for what he’s done.”
“But it will blame me if I don’t do everything I can to minimize the damage to the project.”
“You’ve tried all the standard stuff, and you can’t kill him,” MO-126 reminded Tam. He could sense his partner’s growing frustration. He probably would not go rogue, but it was possible. Any sentient being under enough stress could become irrational. The android dog was prepared to try to stop him if he tried anything physical, but at a third of his mass, his chance of success was about as good as his chance of preventing night from falling.
“Of course not,” Tam said, much to the android dog’s relief. “That’s against Corporation policy. I’d be dismantled for something like that, or I’d have to work an extra thousand years to pay off the fine. These are primitives. Fear of the unknown should work.”
“Perhaps,” Tam said to Thinker. “Maybe they did something to anger their ancestors, too.”
Thinker shook his head. “No. It was just a storm. They happen. It’s got nothing to do with any of this.” He waved his arm to take in the contents of the hut.
“Yet,” Tam said ominously. “I’d be careful, if I were you. A few toys, a bit of art, and maybe some trinkets might be safe, but if you defy tradition, there can be consequences. I have seen things you would not believe.”
His last statement was true enough, but it lent no legitimate support to the point he was attempting to make despite his implication.
“Toys and little things are a good way to test ideas,” Thinker said, “but what I really want to do is make things that are useful. You know. Things that can make a difference, that help people.”
“Why would you want to trouble yourself with stuff like that? We can provide all the tools and other useful things you might ever want.”
“And we appreciate what you bring us in fair trade, but it may be possible to make things ourselves that are even better.”
“I still think you’re tempting fate,” Tam said.
“You worry too much, Trader Tam. There is no harm in any of this. These are good things. Are you worried that we won’t trade with you if we make our own tools?”
“No. That’s not it at all. I’m worried about what things like these can lead to.”
That was another true and intentionally misleading statement.