Fox B. Holden

“ For awhile you may blind people to them, but they cannot be hidden, they are for everyone to see and use as he will, regardless of which side he is on! The Tinkers have kept people blind to them for a few years, but it has become increasingly difficult; and they are learning the hard way that the worst of keeping secrets is the forgetting of them yourself!"
Stine's face was becoming white and tense, and the others gave uneasy glances in his direction, but he did not interrupt, and Jon kept going, unleashing the whole torrent of thoughts that had tormented his soul for so long, so very long. ”

“ His face had become florid, and Jon knew now that Stine was playing for effect on the others; knew suddenly that his own logic was right, and that it was again recognized as a threat, even as B-Haaq had recognized it. A threat to personal power!
And suddenly words were coming in heated torrents from his own lips. "Secrecy! It is all you and the ITA can think of! Whatever it is you know or learn, it must be kept from others! Yes, even while you speak of breaking the ITA monopoly of knowledge and power, you seek to form an identical one yourself! ”

“ Our technical excellence has made all planets completely dependent upon us! You may say that it is not revenge that we seek, but only safety. You may say that if we do have power and prestige, it is only for self protection, so that what happened to our ancestors centuries ago may never again be repeated. All these things are true. But also true is the fact that power is power. We have it, for two galaxies depend upon us for the very life of their civilizations! It is Kane who would threaten it! ”

“ Move!"
Jon fumbled with unfamiliarly placed dogs and buckles, then surrendered the suit, and took deep lungsfull of air.
"Where now?" But the other couldn't hear. His helmet was still in place, and Jon knew that whoever wanted him wasn't taking any more chances than necessary. But as if in answer to his question, a concave panel in the shaft wall was suddenly sliding open, and the stockily built man who stepped in it covered him almost casually with a strange looking two-handed weapon. He signaled to the other, then looked at Jon as if noticing him for the first time. ”

“ Oh, brother—"
"He could, Stine," Jon said. And the big man whirled.
"With those antiquated pop guns he carries? Don't try to make me angry, Kane. He's going to sweat it out there until he and his whole damn crew drops. And then I'm sending you in! By that time things'll be so bad I'll know I can trust you. You're the type, Kane! Fight like hell up to the last second, and then comes the noble, heroic sacrifice part. Oh, you'll do the job, all night after you've sat here watching long enough!"
Jon bit his lip, watched the big man stalk back and forth before the wide banks of screens. ”

“ It was they—on a hundred planets—who without thinking, ran down their scientists, their technicians; murdered them for possessing the knowledge which they had misused! And the few technicians who escaped were bitter and frightened men. They managed to salvage a few of the old ships and escape. And theirs was the natural error of assuming that if they were not to suffer what their murdered companions had, they must think in terms of using what they alone knew as a weapon against those who did not and would not be allowed to have that knowledge! ”

“ Stine's men had messed it up pretty badly. B-Haaq's men had not made matters any better. The operation itself was a simple one, but there was so much to be undone.
Wordlessly, Deanne worked with him in the awful silence. He thought as he worked how ridiculous it must seem to whoever watched—two pygmies on the face of a mechanism hardly a hundred yards across, pitting their wits against a Nature gone mad—two pygmies, attempting to come to grips with an entire solar system! Working alone, in the cold and the dark, with only their helmlanterns to guide their eyes and hands. ”

“ A scant ten thousand miles off, B-Haaq waited in the Flagship. Waiting, Jon knew, for an element of Tinker ships to arrive and form about him in battle formation. And when they came. Yes, he knew what B-Haaq would do.
He looked back, and could barely discern the dark mass of Stine's great craft as it blotted out the myriad of stars behind it. Power against power. They would have to hurry.
He moved toward Deanne, and she moved away. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her to him, touched her helmet with his, and spoke rapidly.
"Keep your radio off, and we'll talk this way! ”

“ Suppose I told you I could do a Project AA in less than an hour's time, and guarantee it good for five hundred years. What would you say to that?"
He saw her eyes widen. "That is sheer nonsense and you know it, cadet! A double-A takes six solid months except in event of emergency, and is good for fifty years at maximum! Why, even the geniuses of those ancient war years who were forced to conceive and devise the Project could not have done better—"
Jon grinned again. "Some day maybe I'll show you, Lenantech! Me and the planets and you! ”

“ With the silent prayer at her lips that it had escaped the eyes of the others, Deanne triggered open the outer lock port and launched herself into Space.
Somehow she knew the man was Jon Kane, even as she knew she had found him too late. She stood, rooted to the spot in the deep shadow of the ragged crag beneath which she had landed, unable even to warn him of the man who had suddenly appeared behind him. A man with a weapon in one hand, aimed straight at the Cadtech's back! ”

“ Then Kane spoke. "Sires, as you can see, the spacetender in which my drive unit has been installed is now proceeding at what is usually considered to be topmost velocity and with what would normally be maximum power output for such a craft." He could feel his voice waver at first, and then with the sound of it and the reassuring feeling of the control studs beneath his fingertips, it strengthened, became firm. And he knew they were listening. Listening as though it were the Gentech himself who spoke. ”

“ But of all places where resentment might still smoulder, even after so long a time, Titan seemed like the place. The Solmen there knew what science and technology could accomplish for men's benefit; they knew best of all because they had helped accomplish the miracle of creating a living planet out of a hunk of sterile rock. And because they had, many of them were slaughtered, as were the other technicians and scientists in the dark days following the Holocaust. ”

“ The big man shifted in his seat, again glanced around at the others. Their eyes were still fastened on Jon as though they had never seen a Tinkerman before. "They may not be dictators in the true sense of the word, but they wield a tremendous political power over more than a hundred planets, Kane. You know that. They have only to refuse a planet its scheduled service visits, and the economy and civilization of that planet is suddenly faced with collapse. Ultimately, such a set-up is going to mean ruin anyway. Someday, there is bound to be rebellion, and not on any single planet, but on many. ”

“ Jon Kane could feel the cold perspiration that made his well cut cadet uniform tunic damp and clinging. He tried to repress a shiver, to stand as completely motionless as the men before him sat.
"Majtech B-Haaq." It was the Director Gentech himself who spoke. His words were slow, measured, and spoken in a voice which might have been that of a man twenty years his junior. ”

“ Whatever challenges, as you charge he has made, could not, then, have been totally irresponsible ones. And it has been a long time since there has been technological challenge of the Intergalactic Technical Alliance!" A hardly discernible smile touched the faded, withering lips, and Kane thought he had detected a momentary lightness in the last words they had spoken. "So it is my suggestion, Majtech—and gentlemen of this panel, that final decision hinge upon the success or failure of the experiment which the accused is held to have proposed, and which he so adamantly refuses to desert!" ”

“ Stine was saying. "But they say there's a better way of winning arguments than with guns, don't they, Master Kane? Slaves are always more valuable than corpses, for one thing, and for another, I think people ought to know that Martin Stine has more to his string than guns alone! Yes...." His broad back was to both Jon and Deanne, now, and he was staring out through a wide port into the gem-studded blackness, and his words were for his own ears. "They will know who is a technician and who is not! The ITA is weak with age—and the weak become the slaves, and the strong become the masters! ”

“ Maybe you can tell me, Lenantech—why replace an entire distributor head assembly on a farm tractor when replacement of the rotor may be all that's necessary? Why a new spark plug when all that is required is the resetting of its points? Why stick to a logarithm with a base of 10 when other bases could often make an entire mathematical operation far more simple? And if a man can build you a better drive unit, why smash it for him and discredit him?"
"I think the court took ample cognizance of those questions, Master Kane." She had lowered the weapon, and had even come a step closer to him. ”

“ They said a man could go mad here. If not from the crazily twisting, undulating heat shapes themselves, then from the pain-tortured vagaries of his own brain. But mad or not, Jonny Kane knew he must somehow stay in the saddle that was not fashioned for human buttocks; stay astride the silver skinned, hairless beast never bred for human transportation, and ride. ”

“ Prior to his capture on Titan, there is little telling to what lengths he may have gone for revenge, Sire. As a Fourth Period Cadtech, he knew Geejay co-ordinates for at least twelve systems, and he knew also upon what the power of the ITA depends—technical efficiency. If that were to be flagrantly misrepresented through such sabotage, ITA prestige and power would of course suffer, and Kane's thirst for revenge slaked. I think perhaps it is of paramount importance that we seek to discover where he might strike next! If, that is, he survived the disintegration of Titan. ”

“ He'd been a fool to put down at a regular spaceport. He'd just walked straight into it. And now it was simply a matter of waiting for either another tender or the Flagship itself to come and get them. He wasn't sure what would happen to Deanne, but for himself, a murder charge, surely.
That accounted for the cell they'd assigned him to. It was unlike the Proky jails in more ways than one; as escape-proof as the tomb itself. Kane even had the feeling that the cell was watching him. ”

“ Can't you understand that where there is secrecy, peace and progress cannot exist? Can't you understand that in the realm of science and technology, there are no secrets? The facts of nature are everywhere in Creation, Senator! ”

“ He breathed again when the hatch popped open because of the dwindling air pressure. He was aware of the conglomeration of noises in his earphones. Somewhere a man was screaming. There had been men screaming for the last full minute, but only now were the sounds beginning to register on his taut brain.
"Where in hell is Zetterman?"
"Don't know—aft with the guy we were sent for I guess. Oh God."
"Then he's within twenty feet of a lock if he's still alive. But he hasn't answered us. So what d'you want to do? We're all that's left and they're almost alongside." ”

“ As she had thought, the crater wall was artificially magnetized, and in a half crouch, clinging to the deepest shadow cast by the grotesque ball of Jupiter above her, she edged her way downward. She reached the spot where the camouflaged hatch had closed, and, again prone, waited. ”

“ And thirdly, the people will have new faith in the ITA and its ability; new respect for the technical knowledge which they now fear and covet so dangerously! In such a way, gentlemen, you can get civilization climbing again in such a way that the Tinkers will be eliminated, but of their own volition, because they will at length have no more to fear, and no further defensive purpose to serve.
"Unless—" and Jon paused for a long breath, "Unless, Senator, you simply want the power the Tinkers now enjoy, for yourself!" ”

“ But—and listen to me, gentlemen!—even as the Senator has said, if knowledge is not given room to grow, it deteriorates! And by keeping their well guarded secrets to themselves, entrusting them only to specially selected personnel whom they recruited year after year for training from the planets so that their organization could grow more rapidly in numbers, and by keeping those 'secrets' sacrosanct and unchallangeable, they became at length outmoded, and finally half forgotten and adulterated with pompous nonsense! ”

“ When I learned of your captivity by warp-beam from Titan and was told about you and the woman and was asked if I wanted you, I said yes. I spared you, Kane, and went to great trouble to obtain you, because you know the Tinkers as we could never hope to know them. And, more importantly, you can handle technology far better than either we or they. ”

“ The big man waved a meaty hand deprecatingly, interrupted easily.
"Master Kane, the Space Tinkers must be forced to give up their books and charts. They must be forced to relinquish this semi-intellectual, semi-religious hold they have on over a hundred planets; their monopoly, in short, must be broken!" A huge fist slammed emphatically down on the littered table top. "My organization has worked long and hard and preserved its secrets at great risk toward that end! We have the ships, we have the weapons—some better, we believe, than those of the ITA—and we have the men! ”

“ The people would be so scared and helpless at the prospect of being helpless that they'd revert to savages even faster than the way in which you described. They'd panic for certain—panic as panic hasn't been known since the Wars themselves." Jon let the sentence trail off, half wondering as he spoke why he was suddenly championing a system which he hated, defending a reactionary philosophy of existence which stunted men's minds at every turn. For Stine was at least half right—the Tinkers did threaten the very essence of intellectual freedom. ”