Raymond Jones: Utility

‘‘Why not the Diomedes first?”

“That's what you’re going to find out.”

McCord was in the bathtub when I went in. He had taken six baths during the night and had had three more before breakfast.

“What’s the dope on our new trading angle?" I asked.

He dunked completely under the water and bubbled up again like a kid. “Just a new wrinkle. Going to make the Diomedes jealous and give us a better deal. I found out they could produce twice as many Jewelworlds as they do if they weren’t so darn lazy.”

It sounded a bit fishy. I didn’t think the Diomedes had any capacity for an emotion like jealousy.

"You don't mean to trade all our pens with the Arthoids, do you?”

“No, just eight or ten cases of them ought to be enough.”

“But that won't leave enough to make a decent trade with the Diomedes !”

“Sure it will. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know whether I will or not. Captain Wilkins is about ready to go out and try to make a deal himself.”

That got McCord. He went pale all over. He stood up and began to dry himself. He was shaking again though the room was warm.

“He can’t do that! Stevens, you’ve got to help me. Say you'll do it.”

“Do what? I’d like to know what the score is.”

“It’s awfully important to me,” pleaded McCord, “and it’s nothing that will hurt the traders, but we’ve got to work with the Arthoids first. Maybe five cases of pens will be enough to make the Diomedes jealous. Persuade the captain for me, will you ?’

I had that hunch again that something tremendous—for McCord— was going on inside his skull. But I was a little dubious about his inexplicable desire to trade with the Arthoids first. That jealousy angle was phony as a glass eye.

“I’ll do it,” I said for no reason that I could fathom. It was a hunch and I prayed it wouldn’t be a bad one.

I went back to the captain and explained the jealousy angle.

He looked at me out of one eye. “You don’t believe that gag, do you?”

“Why not?” I said innocently. “Figure it out for yourself. These little gadget maniacs are craftsmen. When they see we're trading with their rivals first, they’ll know something’s wrong with the deal they’ve been giving us. Always we go to the Arthoids second and fill up with the second-rate stuff after we’ve got all the first grade we can get. We know about how much we can expect from the Diomedes so we reverse the procedure and get a better deal next time we come around.”

“You’re either a blockhead or a liar,” said Captain Wilkins. “But if he only wants to trade five cases of pens to the Arthoids we’ll humor him. I'm going to see Thorgersen about this when we get back, though.”

So we traded with the Arthoids first. McCord led the trading procession next day and five of us followed his regal obesity across the plain, past the pool where the Diomedes stopped to stare at us as if they coudn’t believe their eyes. They knew what was going on, but McCord didn’t give them a second glance.

We paraded on over to the mesa on the opposite side of the valley, where the Arthoids were poking around in their caves. Their powerful, roselike odor filled the air. The five of us stopped while McCord went ahead to palaver with his arm waving. None of us knew where he had picked it up. He wouldn’t teach it to anyone else and any other traders had to get along as best they could, which wasn’t very good. I once tried waving my hands around in front of a Diomede for a couple of hours and the only response I got was his turning over and going to sleep.

But it seemed as if McCord was having instant and overwhelming success. The Arthoids came tumbling out of their caves, apparently flattered by our coming to them first. Each one was juggling an armful of their second-rate Jewelworlds.

We watched McCord pick up one and look at it. He set it down and haggled some more. Finally, he called us over and we began dealing out the pens in exchange for the Jewelworlds.

I got that queer feeling in the pit of my stomach again about those pens as I saw the way the little creatures grabbed them so excitedly, made sure they could operate them and then dashed up to their holes in the cliffs again. There was something distinctly not right, but it was only a hunch again and I decided to stay shut up.

It took us quite a number of trips to bring back all the Jewelworlds we got for five cases of pens. The Arthoids refused to help. They said the Diomedes still had one bank of eggbeaters with a little power left and were waiting to catch some Arthoids at close range.

By the time the deal was over and we had trundled the loot back to the ship the day was pretty well gone. The days are several hours shorter than on Earth, anyway. We decided to wait until tomorrow before approaching the Diomedes.

McCord took some more baths. Nobody else could get in the tub because he was always there. I began to think he’d grow gills.

And the way he drank water—

I saw him drink three quarts in a row at least twice in that one day, and he had several pints in between as a sort of chaser. Once, somebody offered him a glass of beer and I thought he was going to lay the man out.

Along about suppertime, which was after dark, the commotion started.

It started as if the Cassiopeia were suddenly being pounded with a hail of shrapnel and a sort of unearthly squealing and yelling filled the air.

We raced to the ports and looked out after turning on the outside lights. There must have been about four or five thousand Diomedes out there throwing stones at the ship and making those little squealing noises.

“McCord!” Captain Wilkins thundered. “See what’s wrong out there!”

McCord obediently got out of the bathtub and hastily donned a robe. He went out through the hatch and raised his arms above his head. The clamor stopped instantly but the little Diomedes crouched and cowered as if in intense pain. There was a lot of arm waving then between McCord and the furry creatures, then McCord slowly came up the companionway.

“Well—?” Captain Wilkins looked as if he were ready to throw McCord bodily down the stairs again.

“I guess we muffed it, captain. The Arthoids seem to be getting even for that eggbeater deal.”

Captain Wilkins went white under his space tan. So did every other member of the crew present.

“You mean they’ve made a weapon out of those pens?”

McCord nodded.

I looked at him suspiciously. The whole business smelled as high as McCord used to, but there was nothing I could put a finger on. Who could have suspected that the Arthoids could do anything with a harmless object like a pen?

Nobody but me, and it was only a hunch.

“What have they done?” Captain Wilkins asked.

“It seems that the Diomedes have a system of communication that we have never suspected. They are like bats. They generate supersonic waves, and by means of very delicate organs they can detect those waves. The Arthoids knew that and that’s why they were so glad to have the supersonic pens. They’ve hooked them all in phase and turned them on full power. They are slowly torturing the Diomedes to death through their sensitive hearing organs. They’ll all be dead by morning unless we help them.”

Captain Wilkins let out a groan that was echoed by all the rest of us. We visioned our trading careers blighted for the rest of our lives. The Council wouldn’t allow any company to hire us after this boner.

“There’s something else, too,” said McCord.

“You couldn’t possibly make it worse,” said Captain Wilkins.

“I’m afraid so. I learned something else. The Jewelworlds have a property we didn’t know anything about. Ordinarily, the Diomedes live several hundreds of our years, but when one of them dies all the Jewelworlds it has made cease functioning no matter where they are. That means that all the Jewelworlds we have ever brought back will be practically worthless.”