Colin Kapp - The Unorthodox Engineers

He looked up at van Noon and slowly shook his head. From his desk drawer he extracted two glasses. ‘You got any Scotch tucked away somewhere, Fritz?’

‘Oh yes, I think I can manage that,’ said Fritz van Noon with a straight face.

‘I thought you might.’

“Lieutenant van Noon, report to Colonel Belling’s office.”

“Damn!” Fritz van Noon glared at the loudspeaker. “Sounds as though Belling’s back and on the warpath again.”

“Can you wonder?” Jacko Hine helped him out from under the tottering pile of half-assembled pieces. “Let’s face it, Fritz, some of our recent projects have come unstuck in a rather spectacular manner.”

“True,” agreed Fritz, ruefully, “but never let it be said that the Unorthodox Engineers have produced a damp squib. Always our results have exceeded our wildest expectations.”

“Or Belling’s wildest fears,” grinned Jacko.

As Fritz entered the office Colonel Belling looked up over the top of his old-fashioned half-moon spectacles. “Ah, van Noon! Just the fellow I wanted to see.”

“Sir?” asked Fritz suspiciously. Colonel Belling was not a man given to cordiality towards his subordinates.

Belling smiled wolfishly. “I’ve just returned from the General Staff conference. Since you re-instated the railways on Cannis IV even the Old Man has been forced to admit that there may be occasions when unorthodox engineering has its virtues. For my part I felt impelled to point out that I’m trying to run a specialist engineering reserve, and that carrying the can for a complete squad of engineering illegitimates was not strictly within my terms of reference. As I explained, always I get stuck with the one engineer in a thousand who should never have left his mother’s knee, let alone graduated from a university. The only repository I have for these mechanical misfits is the Unorthodox Engineering squad, where the damage they can do will at least be limited.”

“That’s a little unfair, sir…”

“I know what you’re going to tell me! And I don’t accept it. Engineering is a discipline, but the brand you people apply is strictly delinquent. Anyway, the outcome of the conference was that Colonel Nash, whom I’m beginning to suspect has masochistic tendencies, has volunteered to take the U.E. squad on the Tazoon expedition.”

Fritz considered this for a moment. Tazoo was a recently-discovered planet orbiting Beta Centauri. Once home to a technologically advanced civilization, it was now a silent, abandoned world.

“Exactly what are they doing on Tazoo, sir?”

“Supporting the archaeological team. Life on Tazoo is now extinct, but we continue to find evidence that a well-developed civilization once existed there. In terms of knowledge to be gained it could be the most valuable opportunity ever presented to us.”

He paused, and studied van Noon dispassionately. “It’s doubtful if the Tazoons were human or even humanoid. The archaeologists tell me they became extinct around a hundred thousand years ago, and that creates certain complications. After that length of time there might not be much left for us to examine. Our problem is to pick up the remains of a complex mechanical culture as alien and as old as that and attempt to understand it for what it was.”

“That shouldn’t be impossible, sir.”

“No, Fritz, not impossible, but definitely not easy. That’s partly the reason I’m sending you. Your inverted-sideways approach is the nearest thing to an alien technology that we’ve got. That makes you a specialist.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Fritz warily. “And the other part of the reason we’re going?”

“The climatic conditions on Tazoo are such hell that the average rugged ground-cat has a useful working life of about two weeks. That means the archaeologists can’t explore far enough from base to expand their operations. Fritz, I want you to provide them with transport to where they’ll be most use—and if you don’t, you’d better find some other engineering reserve to come back to…”

“Yes, sir,” said Fritz unhappily, “I get the point.”

“You know, Fritz,” said Colonel Belling, “I think we may finally have reached a point of real understanding!” He grinned wolfishly. “I’m going to rather enjoy the thoughts of you and the U.E. squad sweating it out in a hell-spot like Tazoo.”

Touchdown on Tazoo. The transfer ferry had no viewports and afforded no opportunity for its passengers to receive a preview of their destination. Even the ground-cat which rendezvoused at the landing site close-coupled its hatches with the ferry’s air lock before the transfer of passengers and goods began. In the cabin of the ground-cat, shutters likewise obscured the view and cheated Fritz of his moment of revelation.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the cabin’s occupant. “I’m Philip Nevill, Archaeologist in charge of this project.”

“Van Noon,” said Fritz. “Engineer extraordinary—and this is Jacko Hine, one of my staff.”

Nevill grinned affably. “Your reputation preceded you, Lieutenant. Frankly, when I heard of you I persuaded Colonel Nash to get the U.E. squad here at any cost. There are things on Tazoo it’ll take a very liberal mind indeed to understand.”

The ground-cat struggled away from the ferry, its treads crunching through the sand and its engine coughing in asthmatic complaint.

“So I’ve heard,” said Fritz. “Look, do you mind if I open the shutter for a second? I’d like to know the worst right from the start.”

“Help yourself,” said Nevill, “but I promise you it’s a passion you’ll soon lose.”

Fritz fought the shutter from the window and peered out for his first glimpse of Tazoo. Heavy ochre-coloured cloudbanks filtered the furious sunlight to a baleful glare, and rendered all colours as murky shades of reds and browns. Black shadow cut the view into odd-shaped segments. The terrain itself was nothing but a lumpy, featureless waste as far as the eye could see.

“Satisfied?” asked Nevill.

Fritz dropped the shutter back and closed his eyes.

“Painful, isn’t it?” asked Nevill. “Normal endurance is about forty minutes before red-blindness sets in. Very bad for the eyes, to say nothing of the psychological effects. And as if that were not bad enough; the planet has no ozone-layer, so ultraviolet radiation is extremely severe at all times.”

At the blare of the ground-cat’s horn Nevill opened the shutter again. “There’s the base—way over yonder.”

Fritz scowled at the deep-red panorama. Perhaps half a kilometre away was the base, like a cluster of cherries half-submerged in a basin of dirty pink icing.

“Underground, eh? A very sensible precaution.”

“It isn’t underground,” said Nevill in a slightly aggrieved tone. “It’s a surface installation.”

“But I don’t see anything but some almighty balls of mud.”

“They’re standard Knudsen huts with a protective skin on. There’s a sandstorm that whips up every night which would sandblast an unprotected Knudsen to a skeleton before dawn. We spray each hut weekly with a highly plasticized poly-polymer which is reasonably abrasive resistant. The plastic traps some of the sand and this materially increases its resistance, but builds up and completely ruins the shape.”

Abruptly the engine of the ground-cat coughed and died. Nevill held a rapid exchange over the intercom with the driver.

“Engine’s gone,” he said finally. “Either the carburettor’s etched away or the damn sand has got into the cylinders— probably both. Anyway, this cat is a write-off for all practical purposes, so there’s nothing for it but to walk—and it’s too near evening for that to be funny.”