Perpetual Motion

I.

"My good senhor," said Abreu, "where the devil did you get those? Raid half the Earth's pawnshops?" He bent closer to look at the decorations on Felix Borel's chest. "Teutonic Order, French Legion of Honor, Third World War, Public Service Award of North America, Fourth Degree of the Knights of St. Stephen, Danish Order of the Elephant, something-or-other from Japan, Intercollegiate Basketball Championship, Pistol Championship of the Policia do Rio de Janeiro… Tamates, what a collection!"

Borel smiled sardonically down on the fat little security officer. "You never can tell. I might be a basketball champion."

"What are you going to do, sell these things to the poor ignorant Krishnans?"

"I might, if I ran short. Or maybe I'll just dazzle them so they'll give me whatever I ask for."

"Humph. I admit that in that private uniform, with all those medals and orders, you're an awe-inspiring spectacle."

Borel, amusedly watching Abreu fume, knew that the latter was sore because he had not been able to find any excuse to hold Borel at Novorecife. Thank God, thought Borel, the universe is not yet so carefully organized that personal influence can't perform a trick or two. He would have liked to do Abreu a bad turn if for no better reason than that he harbored an irrational prejudice against Brazzies, as though it were Abreu's fault that his native country was the Earth's leading power.

Borel grinned at the bureaucrat. "You'd be surprised how helpful this—uh—costume of mine has been. Flunkeys at spaceports assume I'm at least Chief of Staff of the World Federation. 'Step this way, senhor! Come to the head of the line, senhor!' More fun than a circus."

Abreu sighed. "Well, I can't stop you. I still think you'd have a better chance of survival disguised as a Krishnan, though."

"And wear a green wig, and false feelers on my forehead? No thanks."

"That's your funeral. However, remember Regulation 368 of the Interplanetary Council rules. You know it?"

"Sure. 'It is forbidden to communicate to any native resident of the planet Krishna any device, appliance, machine, tool, weapon, or invention representing an improvement upon the science and technics already in existence upon this planet…' Want me to go on?"

"Ndo, you know it. Remember that while the Via-gens Interplanetarias will ordinarily let you alone once you leave Novorecife, we'll go to any length to prevent and punish any violation of that rule. That's Council orders."

Borel yawned. "I understand. If the type has finished X-raying my baggage, I'll be pushing off. What's the best route to Mishe at present?"

"You could go straight through the Koloft Swamps, but the wilder tribes of the Koloftuma sometimes kill travelers for their goods. You'd better take a raft down the Pichide to Qou, and follow the road southwest from there to Mishe."

"Obrigado. The Republic of Mikardand is on a gold standard, isn't it?"

"Pois sim."

"And what's gold at Novorecife worth in terms of World Federation dollars on Earth?"

"Oh, Deus meu! That takes a higher mathematician to calculate, what with freight and interest and the balance of trade."

"Just approximately," persisted Borel.

"As I remember, a little less than two dollars a gram."

Borel stood up and shook back his red hair with a characteristic gesture. He gathered up his papers. "Adeus, Senhor Cristovao; you've been most helpful."

He smiled broadly as he said this, for Abreu had obviously wanted to be anything but helpful and was still gently simmering over his failure to halt Borel's invasion of Krishna.

The next day found Felix Borel drifting down the Pichide on a timber raft under the tall clouds that paraded across the greenish sky of Krishna. Next to him crouched the Kolofto servant he had hired at Novorecife, tailed and monstrously ugly.

A brisk shower had just ended. Borel stood up and shook drops off his cloak as the big yellow sun struck them. Yerevats did likewise, grumbling in broken Gozashtandou: "If master do like I say, put on poor man clothes, could take towboat and stay close to shore. Then when rain come, could put up tarpaulin. No get wet, no be afraid robbers."

"That's my responsiblity," replied Borel, moving about to get his circulation going again. He gazed off to starboard, where the low shore of the Pichide broke up into a swarm of reedy islets. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

"Koloft Swamps," said Yerevats.

"Your people live there?"

"No, not by river. Further back. By river is all uj-ero." (He gave the Kolofto name for the quasi-human people of the planet, whom most Earthmen thought of simply as Krishans because they were the dominant species.) "Robbers," he added.

Borel, looking at the dark horizontal stripe of reeds between sky and water, wondered if he had been wise to reject Yerevats's advice to buy the full panoply of a garm or knight. Yerevats, he suspected, had been hoping for a fancy suit of armor for himself. Borel had turned down the idea on grounds of expense and weight; suppose one fell into the Pichide in all that stove-piping? Also, he now admitted to himself, he had succumbed to Terran prejudice against medieval Krishman weapons, since one Terran bomb could easily wipe out a whole Krishnan city and one gun mow down a whole army. Perhaps he had not given enough weight to the fact that, where he was going, no Terran bombs or guns would be available.

Too late now for might-have-beens. Borel checked over the armament he had finally bought: a sword for himself, as much a badge of status as a protection. A cheap mace with a wooden handle and a star-shaped iron head for Yerevats. Sheath knives of general utility for both. Finally, a crossbow. Privately Borel, no swashbuckler, hoped that any fighting they did would be at as long a range as possible. He had tried drawing a longbow in the Outfitting Shop at Novorecife, but in his unskilled grip it bob-bled about too much and would have required more practice than he had time for.

Borel folded his cloak, laid it on his barracks bag, and sat down to go over his plans again. The only flaw he could see lay in the matter of getting an entre to the Order of Qarar after he arrived at Mi-she. Once he had made friends with members of the Brotherhood, the rest should be easy. By all accounts, the Mikardanduma were natural-born suckers. But how to take that first step? He would probably have to improvise after he got there.

Once he had gotten over that first hurdle, his careful preparation and experience in rackets like this would see him through. And the best part would be that he would have the laugh on old Abreu, who could do absolutely nothing about it. Since Borel considered honesty a sign of stupidity, and since Abreu was not stupid for all his pompous ways, Borel assumed that Abreu must be out for what he could get like other wise joes, and that his moral attitudes and talk of principles were mere hypocritical pretence.

"Ao!" The shout of one of the raftmen broke into Borel's reverie. The Krishnan was pointing off towards the right bank, where a boat was emerging from among the islets.

Yerevats jumped, up, shading his eyes with his hairy hand. "Robbers!" he said.

"How can you tell from here?" asked Borel, a horrid fear making his heart pound.

"Just know. You see," said the Koloftu, his tail twitching nervously. He looked appealingly at Borel. "Brave master kill robbers? No let them hurt us?"

"Sh-sure," said Borel. He pulled out his sword halfway, looked at the blade, and shoved it back into its scabbard, more as a nervous gesture than anything else.

"Ohe!" said one of the raftmen. "Think you to fight the robbers?"

"I suppose so," said Borel.

"No, you shall not! If we make no fight, they will slay only you, for we are but poor men."

"Is that so?" said Borel. The adrenalin being poured into his system made him contrary, and his voice rose. "So you think I'll let my throat be cut quietly to save yours, huh? I'll show you baghana!" The sword whipped out of the scabbard, and the flat slapped the raftman on the side of the head, staggering him. "We'll fight whether you like it or not! I'll kill the first coward myself!" he was screaming at the three raftmen, now huddled together fearfully. "Make a barricade of the baggage! Move that stove forward!" He stood over them, shouting and swishing the air with his sword, until they had arranged the movables in a rough square.

"Now," said Borel more calmly, "bring your poles and crouch down inside there. You too, Yerevats. I'll try to hold them off with the bow. If they board us anyway, we'll jump out and rush them when I give the signal. Understand?"

The boat had been slanting out from the shore on a course converging toward that of the raft. Now Borel, peering over the edge of his barricade, could make out the individuals in it. There was one in the bow, another in the stern, and the rest rowing— perhaps twenty in all.

"Is time to cock bow," muttered Yerevats.

The others looked nervously over their shoulders as if wondering whether the river offered a better chance of safety than battle.

Borel said: "I wouldn't try to swim ashore. You know the monsters of the Pichide." This only made them look unhappier.,

Borel put his foot into the stirrup at the muzzle end of the crossbow and cocked the device with both hands and a grunt. Then he opened the bandoleer he had bought with the bow and took out one of the bolts: an iron rod a span long, with a notch at one end, and at the other a flattened, diamond-shaped head with a twist to make the missile spin in its flight. He inserted the bolt into its groove.

The boat came closer and closer. The man in the front end called across the water: "Surrender!"

"Keep quiet," said Borel softly to his companions. By now he was so keyed up that he was almost enjoying the excitement.

Again the man in the boat hailed: "Surrender and we'll not hurt you! 'Tis only your goods we want!"

Still no reply from the raft.

"For the last time, give up, or we'll torture you all to death!"

Borel shifted the crossbow to cover the man in the front. Damn, why hadn't these gloops put sights on their gadgets? He'd taken a few practice shots at a piece of paper the day before and thought himself pretty good. Now, however, his target seemed to shrink to mosquito size every time he tried to draw a bead on it, and something must be shaking the raft to make the weapon waver so.

The man in the bow of the boat had produced an object like a small anchor with extra flukes, tied to the end of a rope. He held this dangling while the grunting oarsmen brought the boat swiftly towards the raft, then whirled it around his head.

Borel shut his eyes and jerked the trigger. The string snapped loudly and the stock kicked back against his shoulder. One of the raftmen whooped.

When Borel opened his eyes, the man in the front of the boat was no longer whirling the grapnel. Instead he was looking back towards the stern, where the man who had sat at the tiller had slumped down. The rowers were resting on their oars and jabbering excitedly.

"Great master hit robber captain!" said Yerevats. "Better cock bow again."

Borel stood up to do so. Evidently he had missed the man he aimed at and instead hit the man in the stern. He said nothing, however, to disillusion his servant about his marksmanship.

The boat had reorganized and was coming on again, another robber having taken the place of the one at the tiller. This time there were two Krishnans in front, one with the grapnel and the other with a longbow.

"Keep your heads down," said Borel, and shot at the archer; the bolt flew far over the man's head. Borel started to get up to reload, then realized that he would be making a fine target. Could you cock these damned things sitting down? The archer let fly his shaft, which passed Borel's head with a frightening whisht. Borel hastily found that he could cock his crossbow in a sitting position, albeit a little awkwardly. Another arrow thudded into the baggage.

Borel shed his military-style cap as too tempting a target and sighted on the boat again. Another miss, and the boat came closer. The archer was letting off three arrows to every one of Borel's bolts, though Borel surmised that he was doing so to cover their approach rather than with hope of hitting anybody.

Borel shot again; this time the bolt banged into the planking of the boat. The man with the grapnel was whirling it once more, and another arrow screeched past.

"Hey," said Borel to one of the raftmen, "you with the hatchet! When the grapnel comes aboard, jump out and cut the rope. You other two, get ready to push the boat off with your poles."

"But the arrows—" bleated the first man spoken to.

"I'll take care of that," said Borel with more confidence than he felt.

The archer had nocked another arrow but was holding it steady instead of releasing it. As the boat came within range of the grapnel, the man whirling it let go. It landed on the raft with a thump. Then the man who had thrown it began to pull it in hand over hand until one of the flukes caught in a log.

Borel looked around frantically«for some way of the tempting the the archer to shoot, since otherwise the first to stand up on the raft would be a sitting duck. He seized his cap and raised it above the edge of the barricade. Snap! and another arrow hissed by.

"Go to it!" shrieked Borel, and sighted on the archer. His crew hesitated. The archer reached back to his quiver for another arrow, and Borel, forcing himself to be calm, drew a bead on the man's body and squeezed.

The man gave a loud animal cry, between a grunt and a scream, and doubled over.

"Go on!" yelled Borel again, raising the crossbow as if to beat the raftmen over the head with it. They sprang into life. One severed the rope with a chop of his hatchet, while the other two poked at the boat with their poles.

The remaining man in the front of the boat dropped his rope, shouted something to the rowers, and bent to pick up a boathook. Borel shot at him, but let himself get excited and missed, though it was practically spitting distance. When the boathook caught in the logs, the man hauled the bow of the boat closer, while a few of the forward rowers stopped rowing to cluster around him with weapons ready.

In desperation Borel dropped his crossbow, grabbed the end of the boathook, wrenched it out of the wood, and jerked it towards himself. The man on the other end held on a second too long and toppled into the water, still gripping the shaft. Borel pulled on it with some idea of wrenching it away and reversing it to spear the man in the water. The latter held on, however, and was hauled to the edge of the raft, where he made as though to climb aboard. Meanwhile the raftmen had again pushed the boat away with their poles, so that those who had been gathering themselves to jump across thought better of the idea.

Thump! Yerevats brought his mace down on the head of the man in the water, and the mop of green hair sank beneath the surface.

The raftmen were now yelling triumphantly in their own dialect. A robber, however, had picked up the longbow from the bottom of the boat and was fumbling with an arrow. Borel, recovering his crossbow, took pains with his next shot and made a hit just as the new archer let fly. The arrow went wild and the archer disappeared, to bob up again a second later cursing and holding his shoulder.

Borel cocked his crossbow again and aimed at the man in the boat. This time, however, instead of shooting, he simply pointed it at one man after another. Each man in turn tried to duck down behind the thwarts, so that organized rowing became impossible.

"Had enough?" called Borel.

The robbers were arguing again, until finally one called out: "All right, don't shoot; we'll let you go." The oars resumed their regular rhythm, and the boat swung away towards the swamp. When it was safely out of range, some of the robbers yelled back threats and insults, which Borel could not understand at the distance.

The raftmen were slapping each other's backs, shouting: "We're good! Said I not we could lick a hundred robbers?" Yerevats babbled about his wonderful master.

Borel felt suddenly weak and shaky. If a mouse, or whatever they had on Krishna that corresponded to a mouse, were to climb aboard and squeak at him, he was sure he would leap into the muddy Pichide in sheer terror. However, it would not do to show that. With trembling hands, he inserted a cigarette into his long jewelled holder and lit it. Then he said:

"Yerevats, my damned boots seem to have gotten scuffed. Give them a shine, will you?"