Colin Kapp - The Unorthodox Engineers

‘Colonel Ivan Nash to see you, Sir.’

Colonel William Belling frowned. ‘Ivan Nash? I thought he was on Cannis IV with the occupation force. Anyway, show him in.’

‘Too late!’ said Nash from the doorway. ‘I’m already in. Can’t wait on ceremony, you know, Bill. I’ve got an operation to run.’

Good to see you, Ivan! What brings you to Terra?’

‘Briefly,’ said Nash, ‘it’s the railways up on Cannis.’

Belling waved his visitor into a chair and issued him with a drink. ‘I fear I’m a little out of touch,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think railways were quite in your line.’

‘No?’ Nash filled his pipe carefully. ‘How much do you know about Cannis IV anyway?’

‘Not much. Gravity, atmosphere and climate roughly earth-normal. Population rated human equivalent on the Manneschen scale. Oh yes—and volcanoes!’

‘Precisely,’ said Nash dryly. ‘Let us not forget the volcanoes. Cannis IV is a young world with a very thin crust. Plate-tectonic movement is still pretty extreme and the resulting volcanic activity is widespread and generally severe. magma-blowholes about a dozen metres in diameter can force up anywhere at any time. They raise sharp-edged slag cases from ten to a hundred metres in height. That’s why there are no roads on anywhere on Cannis.’

‘Quite a place,’ commented Belling, refilling the glasses.

‘Quite a place and quite a people.’ Nash studied the ceiling reflectively. ‘Tough as nails and as perverse and changeable as the hell-hole that spawned them. Considering there’s not a two-hundred metre diameter of flat space anywhere on the whole damned planet it’s highly remarkable that any form of civilization ever managed to evolve, let alone one that managed to kick itself into space.’

‘I had wondered about that.’

‘Well you might. They’re an extremely clever race. They’re craftsmen, hobbyists and gadgeteers of the highest calibre. They built up a highly effective mechanical culture by trial and error and empirical method. But they have no true science as such.’

‘So?’

Ivan Nash paused. ‘So Cannis IV took an accidental kinetic impactor during the war. One of the rebel asteroid-ships ended up there after we knocked out its drive. Now the locals don’t have sufficient continuity of technology to get back on their own feet. If you knock a cockeyed culture like that to pieces how, in hell do you get it together again?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Belling, quite honestly.

‘And neither do I. They’re a heck of a nice people when you get to know them. That’s why our presence on Cannis IV is more of a rehabilitation job. If we let them down we throw them back a thousand years.’

‘As bad as that, eh?’ Belling muttered morosely.

‘Worse. With their present production and distributing capacity they’d have difficulty in maintaining more than twenty per cent of their population at a minimum survival level without our help. And help all the way from Terra is a mighty expensive item. We have to stand them on their own feet fast.’

‘So you want reconstruction engineers?’

‘No, I already have engineers. Unfortunately it doesn’t work. Advanced technology is not very suited to patching up a string and hairpin culture. The gulf between our technology and their technique is too great. What I need are specialists with a peculiar kind of skill. That’s why I came to you.’

‘The entire engineering reserve is at your disposal,’ said Belling. ‘You name ‘em, I’ve got ‘em. What do you want?’

‘My main concern is with the railways. With no roads or airstrips, the railways alone give cohesion and life to their scattered society. Without it they can’t survive.’

‘So you want railway engineers?’

‘No,’ said Nash sadly, ‘they wouldn’t be any use.’

‘How come?’

‘Man!’ said Nash in a voice of awe and wonder. ‘Did you ever see the railways up on Cannis? It’s a shunter’s nightmare, a plate-layer’s conception of hell. From an engineer’s point of view it’s a complete and utter impossibility.’

‘Somebody must have constructed it originally.’

‘Yes, a myriad crazy, bug-brained innovators, each working on a separate part to an entirely different specification and for conflicting reasons. It’s a completely lunatic system which breaks every known law of elementary railway technique.’

‘Then,’ said Belling wearily, ‘if you don’t want engineers what do you want?’

‘I want to borrow the UE squad,’ said Nash grimly.

Belling winced. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly.’

‘You realize what the UE squad could do to a situation like this?’

‘I realize it’s a dangerous thing to try, but desperate ills need desperate remedies. It’s the last chance we have to save the planet from barbarism.’

‘If I were you,’ said Belling sadly, ‘I’d resign.’

Lieutenant Fritz van Noon of the Unorthodox Engineering squad faced his superior warily.

‘I’ve got news for you,’ said Colonel Belling. ‘As you know I was against the formation of the UE squad right from the start. The whole subject of Unorthodox Engineering has never sat very easily on my conscience. However, I think you’ve won your point.’

‘You mean that Operation Hyperon is going through?’

‘Just that, but there is a proviso. You have to keep the squad in operational trim until Hyperon is ready by accepting assignments outside this reserve. Colonel Nash has already made a specific request for your services.’

‘I’m grateful,’ said Fritz warily, ‘but there’s a distinct odour of an ulterior motive here somewhere.’

Belling smiled wolfishly. ‘There is indeed. Tell me, Fritz, do you know anything about railways?’

‘No, sir, should I?’

‘Then you’d better get yourself a book or something. You’ve just been appointed controller of public railways on Cannis IV. UE goes with you.’

‘Cannis IV? Where the fuck is that?’

Belling winced. ‘It’s the only habitable planet in the Cannis sector. And it’s the closest approximation to Hell I’ve come across so far.’

‘I’m grateful you thought of me, sir,’’ said van Noon sardonically.

‘And I appreciate your tact, Fritz. You know, it’s no easy task running a specialist engineering reserve. Always you get the one engineer in a thousand who should never have got out of playschool, let alone graduated. With a reserve strength like ours it’s inevitable that we should have collected more than our fair quota of screwballs. The problem has always been to place them in positions where they aren’t actively dangerous. Now I don’t have to worry. The UE squad is a natural home for these guys.’

‘Which statement reveals a deplorable lack of insight,’ said Fritz van Noon. ‘I devised UE to provide an outlet for those engineers whose imagination carried them beyond the ordinary.’

‘I know,’ said Belling dryly. ‘I’ve seen some of your extraordinary engineering. I can only assume that taking you to Cannis to rehabilitate an entire planet is some glorious form of poetic justice. And Fritz—’

‘Sir?’

‘Take it easy on Ivan Nash. He’s a friend of mine, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Try pulling some of those stunts you’ve pulled on me and you’ll probably spend the rest of your career in the deepest and darkest jail he can find.’

‘You can trust me, sir. After all, UE has a reputation to maintain.’

‘That’s precisely what I’m afraid of. Now get the hell out of here. I have an army to run…’