Poul Anderson - The Helping Hand

“Well?” said Skorrogan after a while. “Well?”

“I don’t know.” Thordin rubbed his eyes, a gesture of confusion. “This is all so new to me. Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. I’ll have to think a while about it.”

“I’ve had fifty years to think about it,” said Skorrogan bleakly. “I suppose you’re entitled to a. few minutes.”

They drifted up to the booth. An old Cundaloan sat in it among a clutter of goods, brightly painted vases and bowls and cups. Native work. A woman was haggling over one of the items.

“Look at it,” said Skorrogan to Thordin. “Have you ever seen the old work? This is cheap stuff made by the thousands for the tourist trade. The designs are corrupt, the workmanship’s shoddy. But every loop and line in those designs had meaning once.”

Their eyes fell on one vase standing beside the old boothkeeper, and even the unimpressionable Valtam drew a shaky breath. It glowed, that vase. It seemed almost alive; in a simple shining perfection of clean lines and long smooth curves, someone had poured all his love and longing into it. Perhaps he had thought: This will live when I am gone.

Skorrogan whistled. “That’s an authentic old vase,” he said. “At least a century old — a museum piece! How’d it get in this junk shop?”

The clustered humans edged a little away from the two giant Skontarans, and Skorrogan read their expressions with a wry inner amusement: They stand in some awe of us. Sol no longer hates Skontar; it admires Us. It sends its young men to learn our science and language. But who cares about Cundaloa any more?

But the woman followed his eyes and saw the vase glowing beside the old vendor. She turned back to him: “How much?”

“No sell,” said the Cundaloan. His voice was a dusty whisper, and he hugged his shabby mantle closer about him.

“You sell.” She gave him a bright artificial smile. “I give you much money. I give you ten credits.”

“No sell.”

“I give you hundred credits. Sell!”

“This mine. Family have it since old days. No sell.”

“Five hundred credits!” She waved the money before him.

He clutched the vase to his thin chest and looked up with dark liquid eyes in which the easy tears of the old were starting forth. “No sell. Go‘way. No sell oomaui.”

“Come on,” mumbled Thordin. He grabbed Skorrogan’s arm and pulled him away. “Let’s go. Let’s get back to Skontar.”

“So soon?”

“Yes. Yes. You were right, Skorrogan. You were right, and I am going to make public apology, and you are the greatest savior of history. But let’s get home!”

They hurried down the street. Thordin was trying hard to forget the old Cundaloan’s eyes. But he wondered if he ever would.