The Unorthodox Engineers Page 3

  ‘I can,’ said Fritz slowly. ‘But it’s a dangerous thing to try. You see, there is one place on Cannis where a volcano never rises.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Fritz grinned. ‘Oh ye of little faith.’ He waved an arm in the general direction of the desert. ‘An old and weathered volcano will eventually crumble and be replaced by another one, but a new eruption never rises where an previous one still stands. Pressure difference, I suppose.’

  He broke off suddenly with a puzzled frown.

  ‘I thought I heard a chopper. Are we expecting any visitors?’

  Jacko found a pair of field glasses and studied the helicopter rapidly growing larger in the lens.

  ‘Trouble!’ he said. ‘Looks like Admin has found out where we are. That’s a deputation from Hellsport unless I’m very much mistaken.’

  ‘Shit!’ said Fritz. ‘Can’t you head them off. I’ve got work to do. I bet it’s that lousy planning group come to foul things up.’

  There were two Terran civilians in the helicopter. The taller of the two was clearly a classic, pompous pen-pusher, whilst his companion seemed to be some kind of technical consultant. On the way down from the landing raft they made a rather pointed inspection of the piles of girders and miscellaneous metalwork which littered the camp, and the short man took it upon himself to explain to his companion certain niceties of railway construction which Fritz appeared to have overlooked. By the time they reached the office they were clearly in the mood for business.

  ‘I’m Eldrick, Planning and Co-ordination,’ said the tall civilian. ‘I think you would be Mr Noon.’

  ‘Lieutenant van Noon,’ corrected Fritz wearily. He was proud of his Dutch heritage. ‘I thought Colonel Nash agreed not to waste resources sending Admin out here to count the paperclips.’

  Eldrick smiled tolerantly. ‘I think you misunderstand our purpose. We are the group which co-ordinates the efforts of all units on Cannis IV to ensure that the maximum effort is concentrated in the right direction. We are here to help you.’

  ‘When UE needs help,’ said Fritz, ‘it helps itself. I haven’t come across an administrator yet who even knows what a spanner is. We’re independent, uncoordinated, unorthodox, and generally fireproof—and what’s more I have a certificate to prove it.’

  Eldrick was unmoved. ‘I still think you’re making a mistake, Lieutenant…’

  ‘Listen,’ Fritz broke in. ‘The whole Cannis IV episode is a mistake. This misbegotten planet is some kind of cosmological joke. If you think you can create order out of chaos with a ruler and a pencil-sharpener then you have no idea of the complexities involved.’

  ‘Have you?’ asked Eldrick pointedly. ‘What about steel! You’re supposed to be recreating this railway system. But you can’t build a railway without steel. There are priorities to be arranged, specifications to be agreed, orders to be placed on Terra. Delivery charges… Organization is essential to the well-being of any major endeavour.’

  ‘Organization,’ said Fritz, ‘is the last refuge of a tired mind. It’s a bumbling, mechanical substitute for initiative. I can’t wait twenty months for Terran steel even if it is cut to size and neatly drilled to specification. If I haven’t got steel then I’ll use something else, anything else.’

  ‘I regard that as a very foolish and unnecessary attitude.’

  ‘That foolish attitude of creation out of necessity,’ said Fritz heatedly, ‘is the power and the reason that placed Mankind above the animals. Without it we’d still be scratching fleas off each other’s backs. You’re wasting your time here.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Eldrick, ‘but if necessity is the mother of invention then you are in for a highly creative time. I’ve had a look at your constructions here, and if you think you can get a line through to Hellsport inside ten years you’re either a genius or a fool.’

  Was that wise,’ asked Jacko, watching the helicopter lift off for Hellsport. ‘I mean, throwing him out like that.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Fritz. ‘But I can tell you it felt good! These damned pen-pushers make my blood boil. Civilization runs at a quarter pace because of the blind dictum that everything must be organized according to the book. Ticked off box by box.’

  ‘I suppose it has its virtues, though.’ Jacko was thoughtful. ‘After all, look at these people,’ he jerked a thumb towards the town. ‘They can’t muster a sufficiently collective effort to repair their own railways.’

  Van Noon nodded absently. ‘And for why? Because they’re running on the wrong philosophy. They can’t do it because they’re trying to reinstate the railways as they used to be. That’s not the right attitude. There is no logic in believing a problem has to be solved in the same way now as it was done previously. This railway was a product of its own time—and times change. If you haven’t the means to do what the other fellow did, then forget it and try something else.’

  ‘That’s what I like about you,’ said Jacko. ‘You consistently move in the opposite direction to everyone else. I seem to remember you were about to show us how to build a volcano-proof trestle without actually using any steel.’

  Fritz smiled mischievously. ‘Suppose we forget about trestles. Can you salvage enough scrap to manage the spans and the rails?’

  ‘Sure. That I can find, but if it’s not a rude question how do you figure to hold them up? Will power?’

  ‘Not really. These miniature volcanoes all form cones of approximately the same height, and we can adjust that without too much hassle to even them out. So what does that leave us? Natural pillars of rock which will last a lifetime. Strap on a yoke, sling the spans between them and you have your railway.’

  ‘Crazy like a fox!’ said Jacko. ‘It would work, of course —over a very short section, but I suppose that tired little brain of yours didn’t also figure out how to manoeuvre a string of volcanoes into a straight line roughly approximating the way we want to go? Or do we build a crazy zig-zag track and use triangular trains?’

  ‘No,’ said Fritz, ‘although the idea did occur to me. Also a proverb about Mohammed and the mountain.’

  ‘Now I know you’re nuts,’ said Jacko. ‘If you haven’t got volcanoes then you haven’t got any, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  ‘Is that so? Then I think you have something yet to learn. This may not be one of the most brilliant moments of my career but it may well prove to be the most spectacular.’

  At the end of the line, where the next trestle ought to have been, Harris, and Fanning, the UE geologist, had the mobile drilling rig assembled. Fanning was taking core samples from the drill and shaking his head sadly.

  ‘I don’t like this, Fritz. We’ve penetrated to forty metres and the stuff is coming up hotter than hell. I should hate the drill to break into a high pressure region. We’d all be very dead, very quickly.’

  ‘How near are we to a molten layer?’

  ‘Can’t tell exactly, but the ground-penetrating radar puts it at about seventy metres, plus or minus ten.’

  ‘Near enough,’ said Fritz. ‘If the stuff the drill is picking up is fusible then I think we can stop right here.’

  Fanning breathed a sigh of relief and began to withdraw the drill. When it was out they collapsed the drilling rig, and the bulldozer hauled it from the site.

  Then Harris returned dragging a trolley bearing several metal cylinders. He looked a little nervous. Fritz waved everyone away from the drilling, pulled the pin from the safety-disarm and heaved one of the cylinders end-first down the well. Nothing happened except that after about a minute thick yellow smoke began to issue from the hole. Fritz cursed and, approaching warily, dropped another cylinder after the first.

  He scarcely got away in time. There was a crack like the voice of thunder, and a ball of violent, sparking incandescence screamed into the sky. Then flames jetted up, a scorching burst of fire leaping from the soil like some demented blow-torch. Molten magma, entrained in the superheated gases, was hurled high in the air and descended as
a scatter of singeing hail driven on the light cross-winds.

  The onlookers fled in confusion. By the time that Fritz reached shelter his uniform was smouldering in a dozen places and his face and hands were red from exposure to the heat and covered with superficial burns from the searing fall-out. Jacko had fared little better, having waited to make sure that Fritz was able to escape. They sat down on a broken slag-case, dabbing balm from a first-aid pack on their burns and watching the hectic blast as it roared into the sky.

  Slowly the cone began to form as lava congealed around the flaming throat, and the fiery torch rode up with slow magnificence as the cone became a candle and then a tower with a bright and angry beacon at the top.

  ‘Voila!’ said Fritz. ‘I give you a volcano.’

  ‘Hell, I’ll give you volcanoes!’ said Jacko, dabbing at his burns. ‘Next time you try this Guy Fawkes stunt you’re strictly on your own. What the heck did you drop down that hole?’

  Fritz smiled. ‘A thermite bomb—and a cylinder of oxygen for luck. The intense heat generated by the bomb just above a bed of active igneous magma was more than sufficient to trigger an eruption. This time the process was channelled by the bore-hole, so we got a cone instead of a puddle. We’ll have to adjust the thermite charge to tailor the height of the resultant cone, but that’s not difficult.’

  ’Per ardua ad asbestos!’ said Jacko ruefully. ‘Are you seriously suggesting we do this all the way to Hellsport?’

  ‘Only where we have to,’ said Fritz. ‘And even that will take more thermite bombs than we can come by honestly. Fortunately there’s a way round that. Up on the Juara shelf is the Command weapon stores.

  They’ve more munitions there than we’re ever likely to need.’

  ‘But will they let us have them?’

  ‘No,’ said Fritz, ‘but that’s never stopped Harris before.’

  Several days later the new volcano was extinct. A crazy scaffold was set up round the cone and the top neatly truncated with power chisels and pneumatic drills. As a structure it stood supremely suited for its job. The siliceous rock had set like concrete, and had it been cast deliberately by hand it could not have stood more straight or firm. The yoke was placed around the cone top and secured by hooks into the narrow crater. Prefabricated spans were trimmed to length and joined up to the existing structure. The result was the finest trestle that Cannis IV had ever possessed.

  For UE it was an hour of jubilation. The forgotten gimmicks and the half-formed innovations suddenly leaped to new promise now it was certain the line was going through. At the end of a three week burst of energy the last rail of the Juara line was bolted into place. The locomotive returned to Callin with improvised rolling-stock and two days later chugged triumphantly through to Juara with the first load of the finest bean harvest for years.

  Then it blew itself to bits.

  ‘And something else,’ said Jacko. ‘They’ve just arrested Harris at the Command weapons store. So we won’t be using thermite bombs any more.’

  It was summer in Hellsport. Flies and dust thickened the air, whilst the humid heat was relentless and intolerable. Even in the air-conditioned sanctuary of the Command HQ the fine dust crept through the filters and the humidity defied the monitors to hold the moisture content and the pressure down.

  Sweltering in the heat, Colonel Ivan Nash was about ready to chew bricks anyway. So when the shouting began, he emerged from his office in a thoroughly bad mood. ‘What the fuck is going on out here? He yelled at no-one in particular’

  One of the native helpers said with sly humour, ‘It is said that a train comes in from Juara bearing the greatest man on Cannis.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Nash irritably. ‘There are no trains left on the Juara-Callin line.’

  ‘That may be true,’ the native answered smugly, ‘but something is coming down the line. Look, you can see it for yourself.’

  Nash fetched his field glasses and scanned the railway, which seemed to be dancing in the slow heat-haze. Something was coming down the Juara line, but the distance and the dust conspired to make identification impossible. Only when it grew nearer were the details of the vehicle displayed.

  Nash choked and closed his eyes. ‘That bloody man!’

  The ‘train’ bore a curious resemblance to an army cargo helicopter, minus rotors, and slung on a low truck, the wheels of which were broad grooved rollers. Various items of machinery were slung about the outside of the strange assembly, and on the front, perched awkwardly and in imminent danger of falling off, was Malu. He was waving a large red flag…

  The train entered the terminus, reversed to another rail, then shuttled back and forwards just to show the proficiency of its roller wheels in manoeuvring on any gauge of line. The local workers went wild with enthusiasm, and shouted and cheered until Nash thought his head was going to split. He was still staring from his office window when Fritz van Noon came into the room.

  The Colonel weighed him up silently. ‘All right, Fritz, you win—so far. I never thought you’d really make it. Too bad you had to step out of line to do it.’

  ‘You didn’t exactly help,’ said Fritz. ‘I thought we were finished when you had Ensign Harris arrested for stealing the thermite bombs. Fortunately Malu, our tame local genius, cooked us up a substitute using what I believe might be rocket fuel.’

  ‘Well,’ said Nash. ‘A very worthy effort. Too bad I have to throw the book at you. Unorthodox engineering I could learn to stand, but stealing government property is a very different matter.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Fritz. ‘I have a warrant here authorizing the release of Ensign Harris. It’s neatly signed, sealed and counter-signed by Terran GenCom.’

  ‘No dice!’ said Nash. ‘I mean to court-martial Harris good and proper. Even GenCom can’t dictate to me on the internal administration of my own sector. With any luck Harris will still be in jail when the sun freezes over. And as soon as I can get evidence of complicity you’ll be up beside him. Besides which—’ he said accusingly, ‘—you haven’t had time to get GenCom confirmation on a release warrant.’

  ‘No need,’ said Fritz complacently. ‘I always have a release warrant for Ensign Harris filed away. We usually need it somewhere along the way.’

  Nash stared at him grimly. ‘You mean to say that this man’s conduct is officially condoned?’

  ‘Condoned?’ Fritz chuckled. ‘As far as I am aware the only crime Harris committed was to get caught. For that I will personally reprimand him.’

  ‘But this is preposterous!’ said Nash. The man’s a thief ‘Well, yes. But that’s his speciality. It took us a long time to find someone of his calibre. He’s the man who obtained the suitcase nuke the navy used to end the rebel war. You wouldn’t believe who’s private arms cache it came from!’

  ‘Jesus! This gets worse and worse,’ said Nash, his voice rising with disbelief. ‘Do you mean to say you employ a known criminal because of his prowess at breaking and entering? What sort of trade classification do you call that?’

  ‘Quartermaster,’ said Fritz, with obvious enjoyment. ‘We want equipment and supplies, and Ensign Harris gets them for us.’ He shrugged. ‘We don’t ask too many questions, and anyway, it’s a point of honour that he never comes by anything through the proper channels.’

  ‘But… he… why?’ Nash sensed he was losing ground.

  ‘It’s part of the fundamental philosophy behind Unorthodox Engineering.’

  Nash chewed his moustache nervously. ‘I’ve been warned about getting into an argument with you.’ He returned to the desk and poured himself a drink. On second thoughts he offered it to Fritz and poured himself another.

  ‘I don’t doubt you can explain,’ he said heavily. ‘I don’t doubt your ability to talk your way out of anything. I’m just warning you it’d better be good. If I’m not convinced I’ll have every man-jack of yours in irons before the morning.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Fritz. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been the victim of a slight dec
eption. That crazy gang of bodgers of mine is not quite what it seems. This may be unethical, but if you attempted to take any action against us you’d be out of the army so fast you wouldn’t have time to change your hat.’

  ‘I warn you…’ ground out Nash.

  Hear me out first,’ said Fritz. ‘Have you heard of Operation Hyperon.’

  Nash nodded. ‘The deep-space penetration project. Exploring inward towards the galactic core.’

  ‘Precisely. Well, UE is the lead team that’s going.’

  I don’t think I understand. Is this some sort of joke?’

  ‘No, sir, very far from it. You see, in a deep-space expedition you can’t afford to carry anything but men and the very minimum of equipment which will ensure survival. There are no supply ships, no machine shops, and no reference libraries in between the stars.

  ‘So what type of men do you send? Physicists who are lost without a laboratory? Engineers who can’t obtain any steel? No, you send the men who can make a plough out of a tree-trunk, a stone and a length of creeper. You send the men who have made a lifetime’s habit of turning anything they could lay their hands on to their own peculiar advantage.’

  ‘And that’s the philosophical concept behind UE?’

  ‘Just that,’ said Fritz. ‘Ours is an age of highly complex technology. Specialization and standardization are the key-words of our civilization. But as the starships spread us further across space the strings which tie us to the centres of order and knowledge tend to become a bit tenuous. You can only take a certain amount of technology with you. Things come unknit.’

  ‘A masterpiece of understatement,’ said Nash. ‘Even on Cannis IV we created a technological monster. We tried to apply Terran know-how without having the facilities to back us. It didn’t work.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Fritz, ‘hence UE. This is an experimental team chosen to a pattern decided after years of psycho-research. It’s a completely flexible approach with no precepts sacred except that the endjustifies the means. We have built a team which can construct the nucleus of a functional civilization out of bits of string and matchsticks if necessary. Our coming to Cannis IVwas simply an exercise.’