Murray Leinster - The Duplicators

“Most of my fellas are away,” said Harl worriedly. “An ufft came in yesterday with some bog-iron and said he’d found the biggest deposit of it that ever was found. But y’can’t trust uffts! He wanted a thousand bottles of beer for showin’ us where it was, and five bottles for every load we took away. So I got most of my fellas out huntin’ for it themselves. The ufft’d think it was a smart trick to get a thousand bottles of beer out of me for nothing, and then laugh!”

One of the seemingly dozing uffts yawned elaborately. It was not exactly derisive, but it was not respectful, either.

Harl scowled. He led the way past the ceremonial chair and out a small sized door just beyond. Here, abruptly, there was open air again. And here, in a space some fifty by fifty feet, there was an absolutely startling garden. It struck Link forcibly because it made him realize that at no time on the journey from the landed Glamorgan to the village had he seen a sign of cultivated land. There was very little vegetation of any sort. Isolated threads of green appeared here and there, perhaps, but nothing else. There’d been no fields, no crops, no growing things of any sort. There was literally no food being grown outside the village for the feeding of its inhabitants. But here, in a space less than twenty yards across, there was a ten-foot patch of wheat, and a five-foot patch of barley, and a row of root-plants which were almost certainly turnips. Every square inch was cultivated. There were rows of plants not yet identifiable. There was a rather straggly row of lettuce. It was strictly a kitchen garden, growing foodstuffs, but on so small a scale that it wouldn’t markedly improve the diet of a single small family. In one corner there was an apple tree showing some small and probably wormy apples on its branches. There was another tree not yet of an age to bear fruit, but Link did not know what it was.

And there was a girl with a watering can, carefully giving water to a row of radishes.

“Thana,” said Harl, troubled. “This’s Link Denham. He came down in that noise we heard a while ago. It was a spaceship. That whiskery fella came in it too. I’m goin’ to have to hang Link along with him—I hate to do it, because he seems a nice fella—but I thought I’d have you talk to him beforehand. Coming from far off, he might be able to tell you some of those things you’re always wishin’ you knew.”

To Link he added, “This’s my sister Thana. She runs this growin’ place and not many Households eat as fancy as mine does! See that apple tree?”

Link said, “Very pretty” and looked carefully at the girl. At this stage in his affairs he wasn’t overlooking any bets. She’d be a pretty girl if she had a less troubled expression. But she did not smile when she looked at him.

“You’d better talk to that whiskery man,” she said severely to her brother. “I had to have him put in a cage.”

“Why not just have a fella watch him?” demanded Harl. ‘Even if a man is goin’ to be hung, it ain’t manners not to make him comfortable.”

The girl looked at Link. She was embarrassed. She moved a little distance away. Harl went to her and she reported something in a low tone. Harl said vexedly, “Sput! I never heard of such a thing! I… never… heard of such a thing! Link, I’m goin’ to ask you to do me a favor.”

Link was in a state of very considerable confusion. It seemed settled that he faced a very undesirable experience. Hanging. But he was not treated as a criminal. Harl, in fact, seemed to feel rather apologetic about it and to wish Link well in everything but continued existence. But now he returned to Link, very angry.

“I’m going to ask you, Link,” he said indignantly, “to go see that whiskery fella and tell him there’s a end to my patience! He insulted me, an’ that’s all right. He’ll get hung for it and that’s the end of it. But you tell him he’s got to behave himself until he does get hung! When it comes to tryin’ to send a message to my sister—my sister, Link offerin’ to pay her for sendin’ a message to Old Man Addison, I’m not goin’ to stand for it! He’s gettin’ hung for sayin’ that to me! What more does he want?”

Link opened his mouth to suggest that perhaps Thistlethwaite wanted to get a message to Old Man Addison. But it did not seem tactful.

“You see him,” said Harl wrathfully. “If I was to go I’d prob’ly have him hung right off, and all my fellas that didn’t see it would think it was unmannerly of me not to wait. So you talk to him, will you?”

Link swallowed. Then he asked:

“How will I find him?”

“Go in yonder,” said Harl, pointing, “and ask an ufft to show you. There’ll be some house-uffts around. Ask any one of ’em.”

He turned back to his sister. Link headed for the pointed-out door. He heard Harl, behind him, saying angrily:

“If he don’t behave himself, sput! Hangin’s too good for him!”

But then Link passed through the door and heard no more. Uffts in their own village were openly derisive of Harl. But they sauntered about his house and slept on his floors and he certainly tolerated it. He found himself in a hallway with doors on either side and an unusually heavy door at the end. It occurred to him that he was nearly in the same fix as Thistlethwaite, though Thistlethwaite had wanted to send a message, while he’d only made a speech to the uffts. He groped for something that would make sense out of the situation.

An ufft slept tranquilly in the hall. It was very pig-like indeed. It looked like about a hundred-pound shote, with pinkish hide under a sparse coating of hair. Link stirred the creature with his foot. The ufft waked with a convulsive, frightened scramble of small hoofs.

“Where’s the jail?” asked Link. He’d just realized that he couldn’t make plans for himself alone, since Thistlethwaite was in the same fix. It made things look more difficult.

The ufft said sulkily, “What’s a jail?”

“In this case, the room where that man who’s to be hung is locked up,” said Link. “Where is it?”

“There isn’t any,” said the ufft, more sulkily than before. “And he’s not locked up in a room. He’s in a cage.”

“Then where’s the cage?”

“Around him,” said the ufft with an air of extreme fretfulness. “Just because you humans have paws isn’t any reason to wake people up when they’re resting.”

“You!” snapped Link. “Where’s that cage?

The ufft backed away affrightedly.

“Don’t do that!” it protested nervously. “Don’t threaten me! Don’t get me upset!”

It began to back away again. Link advanced upon the ufft. “Then tell me what I want to know!”

The ufft summoned courage. It bolted. Some distance away it halted at a branching passage to stare at Link in the same extreme unease.

“He’s in the cellar,” said the ufft. “Down there!”

It pointed with a fore-hoof.

“Thanks,” said Link, with irony.

The ufft protested, complainingly:

“It’s all very well for you to say thanks after you’ve scared a person.”

Link moved forward, and the ufft fled. But Link’s intentions were not offensive. He was simply following instructions. He moved doggedly down the hallway. It was carpeted. But the carpet was worn and frayed, though once it had been luxurious. He noted that the plastering was the work of a less than skilled workman.

He came to a corner in the hallway wall. A flight of steps went downward, to the left. He went down them. He heard voices. One of them had the quality of an ufft’s speech.

“Now, we can do it. The fee will be five thousand beers.”

Thistlethwaite sounded enraged.

“Outrageous! Robbery! One thousand bottles!”