Frank Herbert: The Godmakers

“They’ve already started building factories to produce machine tools,” Orne said.

“They’re quick enough.” He shrugged. “They soak everything up like some dark gloomy sponge.”

“Very poetic,” Stetson growled. He lifted his long frame from the chair, strode to the middle of the room. “Let’s go take a closer look. And I’m warning you, Orne, the I-A has more important things to do than go around wet-nursing R&R.”

“And you’d just love to make us look like a pack of fumbleheads,” Orne said.

“You’re sooooo right, son. That would not make me lose any sleep at all.”

“So what if I made a mistake! A first… ”

“We’ll see, we’ll see. Come along. We’ll use my go-buggy. ”

Here goes nothing , Orne thought. This schlammler isn’t going to look very hard when it’s easier to sit back and laugh at R&R. I’m finished before we start.

It already was beginning to grow hot in Pitsiben when Orne and Stetson emerged onto the cobblestone street. The green and yellow flag drooped limply from its mast atop the guesthouse. All activity seemed to have taken on a slower pace. Groups of stolid Hamalites stood before awning-shaded vegetable stalls across from the guesthouse. They gazed moodily at the I-A vehicle parked at the guesthouse doorway. The go-buggy was a white basic two-seater teardrop with wraparound window, a turbine in the rear.

Orne and Stetson got in, fastened their safety belts.

“There’s what I mean,” Orne said.

Stetson started the turbine whining up to power level, engaged the clutch. The buggy bounced several times on the cobbles until the gyro-spring system took hold. It made a neat, flat turn past the vegetable stalls.

Stetson spoke over the turbine sound: “There’s what you mean what?”

“Those dolts back there. Any other place in the universe they’d have been around your go-buggy ten deep, prying under the rear vents at the turbine, poking underneath at the suspension. These jerks just stand around at a distance and look gloomy.

“No froolap ,” Stetson said.

“Yeah!”

“Why do you think they do that?”

“I think they’re obeying orders.”

“Why couldn’t they just be shy?”

“Forget I mentioned it.”

“I see by your reports that there are no walled villages on Hamal,” Stetson said. He slowed the buggy to maneuver between two of the low pushcarts. The farmers gave the buggy only a passing glance.

“None that I’ve seen,” Orne said.

“No military drill by large groups?”

“None that I’ve seen.”

“And no heavy armaments?”

“None that I’ve seen.”

“What’s this none-that-I’ve-seen kick?” Stetson demanded. “Do you suspect them of hiding something?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because things don’t seem to fit on this planet. And when things don’t fit there are missing pieces.”

Stetson took his attention from the street, shot a sharp glance at Orne. “So you’re suspicious.”

Orne grabbed the door handle as the go-buggy swerved around a corner, headed out onto the wide ridge road. “That’s what I told you right at the beginning.”

“We’re always simply delighted to investigate R&R’s slightest suspicions,” Stetson said.

“It’s better for me to make a mistake than it is for you to make one,” Orne growled.

“You will have noticed that their construction is almost entirely of wood,” Stetson said. “At their technological level, wood construction leans to the side of peace.”

“Provided we know what all this means…” Orne gestured at the countryside “…in technological level.”

“Is that what they’re teaching you now at dear old Uni-Galacta?”

“No. That was my own idea. If they have artillery and mobile cavalry, stone forts would be useless.”

“What would they use for cavalry?” Stetson asked. “According to your reports, there are no riding animals on Hamal.”

“So I haven’t found any… yet!”

“All right,” Stetson said. “I’ll be reasonable. You spoke of weapons. What weapons? I haven’t seen anything heavier than those fowling pieces carried by their hunters.”

“If they had cannon that’d explain a lot of things,” Orne said.

“Such as the lack of stone forts?”

“You’re damn right!”

“An interesting theory. How do they manufacture the fowling pieces, by the way?”

“They’re produced singly by skilled artisans. It’s a sort of a guild.”

“A sort of a guild. My!” Stetson pulled the go-buggy to a jolting stop on a deserted stretch of the ridge road, shut down the turbine.

Orne stared around him in the silence. It was hot and peaceful. A few hopping insects braved the ridge road’s dusty tracks. Orne experienced the disturbing sensation that he had been in just this situation under these precise circumstances before, that he was repeating his life, caught on a circular track from which there was no escape.

“Did First-Contact see any sign of cannon?” Stetson asked. “You know he didn’t.”

Stetson nodded. “Mmmmmm, hmmmmm.”

“But that could’ve been accident or design,” Orne said. “The stupid schlammler shot off his face the first day and told these people how important it is to us that a redisc planet have a peaceful society.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’ve heard the recording.”

“Then you’re sooooo right,” Stetson said. “For once.” He slid out of the buggy. “Come on. Give me a hand.”

Orne got out of his side. “Why’re we stopping?”

Stetson passed him the end of a tape measure. “Hold the idiot end of this at the edge of the road over there like a good fellow, will you?”

Orne obeyed. The plasteel clip at the end of the tape felt cool and dust puffed up between his fingers. The place smelled of earth and musty growing things.

The ridge road proved to be just under seven meters wide. Stetson announced this fact, writing the figure in a notebook. He muttered something about “lines of regression.” They returned to the go-buggy, set off once more down the road.

“What’s important about the width of the road?” Orne asked.

“I-A has a profitable sideline selling omnibuses,” Stetson said. “I just wanted to see if our current models would fit these roads.”

“Funny man!” Orne growled. “I presume it’s increasingly difficult for I-A to justify its appropriations.”

Stetson laughed. “You’re sooooo right! We’re going to put in an additional line of nerve tonic for R&R agents. That should get us out of the red.”

Orne leaned back into his corner, sank into gloom. I’m done for. This smart ass chief operative isn’t going to find anything I didn’t find. There was no real reason for me to call in the I-A except that things don’t fit here.

Stetson turned the go-buggy as the ridge road dipped down to the right through scrub trees.

“We finally get off the high road,” Stetson said.

“If we’d kept straight on we’d have gone down into a swamp,” Orne said.

“Oh?”

The road took them out onto the floor of a wide valley cut by lines of windbreak trees. Smoke spiraled into the still air from behind the trees.

“What’s the smoke over there?” Stetson asked.

“Farmhouses.”

“You’ve looked?”