And then another week—a week to wind a weary way through the clouds of minor officials that formed the buffer between the Grand Master and the outer world. Each little sub-secretary required soothing and conciliation. Each required careful and nauseating milking for the flourishing signature that was the pathway to the next official one higher up.
For the first time, Ponyets found his trader’s identification papers useless.
Now, at last, the Grand Master was on the other side of the guard-flanked gilded door—and two weeks had gone.
Gorov was still a prisoner and Ponyets’ cargo rotted useless in the holds of his ship.
The Grand Master was a small man; a small man with a balding head and very wrinkled face, whose body seemed weighed down to motionlessness by the huge, glossy fur collar about his neck.
His fingers moved on either side, and the line of armed men backed away to form a passage, along which Ponyets strode to the foot of the Chair of State.
“Don’t speak,” snapped the Grand Master, and Ponyets’ opening lips closed tightly.
“That’s right,” the Askonian ruler relaxed visibly, “I can’t endure useless chatter. You cannot threaten and I won’t abide flattery. Nor is there room for injured complaints. I have lost count of the times you wanderers have been warned that your devil’s machines are not wanted anywhere in Askone.”
“Sir,” said Ponyets, quietly, “there is no attempt to justify the trader in question. It is not the policy of traders to intrude where they are not wanted. But the Galaxy is great, and it has happened before that a boundary has been trespassed unwittingly. It was a deplorable mistake.”
“Deplorable, certainly,” squeaked the Grand Master. “But mistake? Your people on Glyptal IV have been bombarding me with pleas for negotiation since two hours after the sacrilegious wretch was seized. I have been warned by them of your own coming many times over. It seems a well-organized rescue campaign. Much seems to have been anticipated—a little too much for mistakes, deplorable or otherwise.”
The Askonian’s black eyes were scornful. He raced on. “And are you traders, flitting from world to world like mad little butterflies, so mad in your own right that you can land on Askone’s largest world, in the center of its system, and consider it an unwitting boundary mixup? Come, surely not.”
Ponyets winced without showing it. He said, doggedly, “If the attempt to trade was deliberate, your Veneration, it was most injudicious and contrary to the strictest regulations of our Guild.”
“Injudicious, yes,” said the Askonian, curtly. “So much so that your comrade is likely to lose life in payment.”
Ponyets’ stomach knotted. There was no irresolution there. He said, “Death, your Veneration, is so absolute and irrevocable a phenomenon that certainly there must be some alternative.”
There was a pause before the guarded answer came. “I have heard that the Foundation is rich.”
“Rich? Certainly. But our riches are that which you refuse to take. Our nuclear goods are worth—”
“Your goods are worthless in that they lack the ancestral blessing. Your goods are wicked and accursed in that they lie under the ancestral interdict.” The sentences were intoned; the recitation of a formula.
The Grand Master’s eyelids dropped, and he said with meaning, “You have nothing else of value?”
The meaning was lost on the trader, “I don’t understand. What is it you want?”
The Askonian’s hands spread apart. “You ask me to trade places with you, and make known to you my wants. I think not. Your colleague, it seems, must suffer the punishment set for sacrilege by the Askonian code. Death by gas. We are a just people. The poorest peasant, in like case, would suffer no more. I, myself, would suffer no less.”
Ponyets mumbled hopelessly, “Your Veneration, would it be permitted that I speak to the prisoner?”
“Askonian law,” said the Grand Master coldly, “allows no communication with a condemned man.”
Mentally, Ponyets held his breath, “Your Veneration, I ask you to be merciful towards a man’s soul, in the hour when his body stands forfeit. He has been separated from spiritual consolation in all the time that his life has been in danger. Even now, he faces the prospect of going unprepared to the bosom of the Spirit that rules all.”
The Grand Master said slowly and suspiciously, “You are a Tender of the Soul?”
Ponyets dropped a humble head. “I have been so trained. In the empty expanses of space, the wandering traders need men like myself to care for the spiritual side of a life so given over to commerce and worldly pursuits.”
The Askonian ruler sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip. “Every man should prepare his soul for his journey to his ancestral spirits. Yet I had never thought you traders to be believers.”
3
Eskel Gorov stirred on his couch and opened one eye as Limmar Ponyets entered the heavily reinforced door. It boomed shut behind him. Gorov sputtered and came to his feet.
“Ponyets! They sent you?”
“Pure chance,” said Ponyets, bitterly, “or the work of my own personal malevolent demon. Item one, you get into a mess on Askone. Item two, my sales route, as known to the Board of Trade, carries me within fifty parsecs of the system at just the time of item one. Item three, we’ve worked together before and the Board knows it. Isn’t that a sweet, inevitable set-up? The answer just pops out of a slot.”
“Be careful,” said Gorov, tautly. “There’ll be someone listening. Are you wearing a Field Distorter?”
Ponyets indicated the ornamented bracelet that hugged his wrist and Gorov relaxed.
Ponyets looked about him. The cell was bare, but large. It was well-lit and it lacked offensive odors. He said, “Not bad. They’re treating you with kid gloves.”
Gorov brushed the remark aside. “Listen, how did you get down here? I’ve been in strict solitary for almost two weeks.”
“Ever since I came, huh? Well, it seems the old bird who’s boss here has his weak points. He leans toward pious speeches, so I took a chance that worked. I’m here in the capacity of your spiritual adviser. There’s something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul. It’s just a piece of empirical psychology. A trader has to know a little of everything.”
Gorov’s smile was sardonic. “And you’ve been to theological school as well. You’re all right, Ponyets. I’m glad they sent you. But the Grand Master doesn’t love my soul exclusively. Has he mentioned a ransom?”
The trader’s eyes narrowed, “He hinted—barely. And he also threatened death by gas. I played safe, and dodged; it might easily have been a trap. So it’s extortion, is it? What is it he wants?”
“Gold.”
“Gold!” Ponyets frowned. “The metal itself? What for?”
“It’s their medium of exchange.”
“Is it? And where do I get gold from?”
“Wherever you can. Listen to me; this is important. Nothing will happen to me as long as the Grand Master has the scent of gold in his nose. Promise it to him; as much as he asks for. Then go back to the Foundation, if necessary, to get it. When I’m free, we’ll be escorted out of the system, and then we part company.”
Ponyets stared disapprovingly. “And then you’ll come back and try again.”
“It’s my assignment to sell nucleics to Askone.”
“They’ll get you before you’ve gone a parsec in space. You know that, I suppose.”
“I don’t,” said Gorov. “And if I did, it wouldn’t affect things.”
“They’ll kill you the second time.”
Gorov shrugged.
Ponyets said quietly, “If I’m going to negotiate with the Grand Master again, I want to know the whole story. So far, I’ve been working it too blind. As it was, the few mild remarks I did make almost threw his Veneration into fits.”
“It’s simple enough,” said Gorov
. “The only way we can increase the security of the Foundation here in the Periphery is to form a religion-controlled commercial empire. We’re still too weak to be able to force political control. It’s all we can do to hold the Four Kingdoms.”
Ponyets was nodding. “This I realize. And any system that doesn’t accept nuclear gadgets can never be placed under our religious control—”
“And can therefore become a focal point for independence and hostility. Yes.”
“All right, then,” said Ponyets, “so much for theory. Now what exactly prevents the sale. Religion? The Grand Master implied as much.”
“It’s a form of ancestor worship. Their traditions tell of an evil past from which they were saved by the simple and virtuous heroes of the past generations. It amounts to a distortion of the anarchic period a century ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent government was set up. Advanced science and nuclear power in particular became identified with the old imperial regime they remember with horror.”
“That so? But they have nice little ships which spotted me very handily two parsecs away. That smells of nucleics to me.”
Gorov shrugged. “Those ships are holdovers of the Empire, no doubt. Probably with nuclear drive. What they have, they keep. The point is that they will not innovate and their internal economy is entirely non-nuclear. That is what we must change.”
“How were you going to do it?”
“By breaking the resistance at one point. To put it simply, if I could sell a penknife with a force-field blade to a nobleman, it would be to his interest to force laws that would allow him to use it. Put that baldly, it sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically. To make strategic sales, at strategic points, would be to create a pronucleics faction at court.”
“And they send you for that purpose, while I’m only here to ransom you and leave, while you keep on trying? Isn’t that sort of tail-backward?”
“In what way?” said Gorov, guardedly.
“Listen,” Ponyets was suddenly exasperated, “you’re a diplomat, not a trader, and calling you a trader won’t make you one. This case is for one who’s made a business of selling—and I’m here with a full cargo stinking into uselessness, and a quota that won’t ever be met, it looks like.”
“You mean you’re going to risk your life on something that isn’t your business?” Gorov smiled thinly.
Ponyets said, “You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren’t patriotic?”
“Notoriously not. Pioneers never are.”
“All right. I’ll grant that. I don’t scoot about space to save the Foundation or anything like that. But I’m out to make money, and this is my chance. If it helps the Foundation at the same time, all the better. And I’ve risked my life on slimmer chances.”
Ponyets rose, and Gorov rose with him. “What are you going to do?”
The trader smiled. “Gorov, I don’t know—not yet. But if the crux of the matter is to make a sale, then I’m your man. I’m not a boaster as a general thing, but there’s one thing I’ll always back up. I’ve never ended up below quota yet.”
The door to the cell opened almost instantly when he knocked, and two guards fell in on either side.
4
“A show!” said the Grand Master, grimly. He settled himself well into his furs, and one thin hand grasped the iron cudgel he used as a cane.
“And gold, your Veneration.”
“And gold,” agreed the Grand Master, carelessly.
Ponyets set the box down and opened it with as fine an appearance of confidence as he could manage. He felt alone in the face of universal hostility; the way he had felt out in space his first year. The semicircle of bearded councilors who faced him down, stared unpleasantly. Among them was Pherl, the thin-faced favorite who sat next to the Grand Master in stiff hostility. Ponyets had met him once already and marked him immediately as prime enemy, and, as a consequence, prime victim.
Outside the hall, a small army awaited events. Ponyets was effectively isolated from his ship; he lacked any weapon but his attempted bribe; and Gorov was still a hostage.
He made the final adjustments on the clumsy monstrosity that had cost him a week of ingenuity, and prayed once again that the lead-lined quartz would stand the strain.
“What is it?” asked the Grand Master.
“This,” said Ponyets, stepping back, “is a small device I have constructed myself.”
“That is obvious, but it is not the information I want. Is it one of the black-magic abominations of your world?”
“It is nuclear in nature,” admitted Ponyets, gravely, “but none of you need touch it, or have anything to do with it. It is for myself alone, and if it contains abominations, I take the foulness of it upon myself.”
The Grand Master had raised his iron cane at the machine in a threatening gesture and his lips moved rapidly and silently in a purifying invocation. The thin-faced councilor at his right leaned towards him and his straggled red mustache approached the Grand Master’s ear. The ancient Askonian petulantly shrugged himself free.
“And what is the connection of your instrument of evil and the gold that may save your countryman’s life?”
“With this machine,” began Ponyets, as his hand dropped softly onto the central chamber and caressed its hard, round flanks, “I can turn the iron you discard into gold of the finest quality. It is the only device known to man that will take iron—the ugly iron, your Veneration, that props up the chair you sit in and the walls of this building—and change it to shining, heavy, yellow gold.”
Ponyets felt himself botching it. His usual sales talk was smooth, facile and plausible; but this limped like a shot-up space wagon. But it was the content, not the form, that interested the Grand Master.
“So? Transmutation? There have been fools who have claimed the ability. They have paid for their prying sacrilege.”
“Had they succeeded?”
“No.” The Grand Master seemed coldly amused. “Success at producing gold would have been a crime that carried its own antidote. It is the attempt plus the failure that is fatal. Here, what can you do with my staff?” He pounded the floor with it.
“Your Veneration will excuse me. My device is a small model, prepared by myself, and your staff is too long.”
The Grand Master’s small shining eye wandered and stopped. “Randel, your buckles. Come, man, they shall be replaced double if need be.”
The buckles passed down the line, hand to hand. The Grand Master weighed them thoughtfully.
“Here,” he said, and threw them to the floor.
Ponyets picked them up. He tugged hard before the cylinder opened, and his eyes blinked and squinted with effort as he centered the buckles carefully on the anode screen. Later, it would be easier but there must be no failures the first time.
The homemade transmuter crackled malevolently for ten minutes while the odor of ozone became faintly present. The Askonians backed away, muttering, and again Pherl whispered urgently into his ruler’s ear. The Grand Master’s expression was stony. He did not budge.
And the buckles were gold.
Ponyets held them out to the Grand Master with a murmured, “Your Veneration!” but the old man hesitated, then gestured them away. His stare lingered upon the transmuter.
Ponyets said rapidly, “Gentlemen, this is pure gold. Gold through and through. You may subject it to every known physical and chemical test, if you wish to prove the point. It cannot be identified from naturally-occurring gold in any way. Any iron can be so treated. Rust will not interfere, nor will a moderate amount of alloying metals—”
But Ponyets spoke only to fill a vacuum. He let the buckles remain in his outstretched hand, and it was the gold that argued for him.
The Grand Master stretched out a slow hand at last, and the thin-faced Pherl was roused to open speech. “Your Veneration, the gold is from a poisoned source.”
And Ponyets countered, “A rose can grow from the mud, your
Veneration. In your dealings with your neighbors, you buy material of all imaginable variety, without inquiring as to where they get it, whether from an orthodox machine blessed by your benign ancestors or from some space-spawned outrage. Come, I don’t offer the machine. I offer the gold.”
“Your Veneration,” said Pherl, “you are not responsible for the sins of foreigners who work neither with your consent nor knowledge. But to accept this strange pseudo-gold made sinfully from iron in your presence and with your consent is an affront to the living spirits of our holy ancestors.”
“Yet gold is gold,” said the Grand Master, doubtfully, “and is but an exchange for the heathen person of a convicted felon. Pherl, you are too critical.” But he withdrew his hand.
Ponyets said, “You are wisdom, itself, your Veneration. Consider—to give up a heathen is to lose nothing for your ancestors, whereas with the gold you get in exchange you can ornament the shrines of their holy spirits. And surely, were gold evil in itself, if such a thing could be, the evil would depart of necessity once the metal were put to such pious use.”
“Now by the bones of my grandfather,” said the Grand Master with surprising vehemence. His lips separated in a shrill laugh. “Pherl, what do you say of this young man? The statement is valid. It is as valid as the words of my ancestors.”
Pherl said gloomily, “So it would seem. Grant that the validity does not turn out to be a device of the Malignant Spirit.”
“I’ll make it even better,” said Ponyets, suddenly. “Hold the gold in hostage. Place it on the altars of your ancestors as an offering and hold me for thirty days. If at the end of that time, there is no evidence of displeasure—if no disasters occur—surely, it would be proof that the offering was accepted. What more can be offered?”
And when the Grand Master rose to his feet to search out disapproval, not a man in the council failed to signal his agreement. Even Pherl chewed the ragged end of his mustache and nodded curtly.