The Makeshift Rocket (3 page)

‘Now, now,’ said Herr Syrup anxiously. ‘Now, now,
Froeken
… er, Miss – now, now, now, yust a minute.’

The Martian had already gone over to her. ‘That is
nicht
so bad, Emily,’ he whistled, standing on tiptentacle to pat her shoulder. ‘There, there. Remember Epicurus.’

‘I don’t care about Epicurus!’ sobbed the girl, burying her face in her hands.

‘
Outis epoisei soi bareias cheiras
,’ said Sarmishkidu bravely.

‘Well,’ wept the girl, ‘w-well, of course. At least, I hope so.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a laurel leaf. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that – that – oh, everything.’

‘Yes,’ said the Martian, ‘the situation indubitably falls within the Aristotelian definition of tragedy. I have calculated my losses so far at a net fifty pounds sterling, four shillings and thruppence ha’penny per diem.’

Wet, but beautiful, the girl blinked at Herr Syrup. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ she said tremulously. ‘This situation on Gren
del, you know. It’s so overwreaking.’ She put her finger to her lips and frowned. ‘Is that the word? These barbarian languages! I mean, the situation has us all overwrought.’

‘Ahem!’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘Miss Emily Croft, may I present Mister, er—’

‘Syrup,’ said Herr Syrup, and extended a somewhat engine-grimy hand.

‘Rejoice,’ said the girl politely.’
Hellenicheis
?’

‘Gesundheit,’ said Herr Syrup.

Miss Emily Croft stared, then sighed. ‘I asked if you spoke Attic Greek,’ she said.

‘No, I’m sorry, I do not even speak basement Greek,’ floundered Herr Syrup.

‘You see,’ said Miss Croft, ‘I am a Duncanite – even if it does make Father furious. He’s the vicar, you know – and I’m the only Duncanite on Grendel. Mr. Sarmishkidu – I’m sorry, I mean Herr von Himmelschmidt – speaks Greek with me, which does help, even though I cannot always approve his choice of passages for quotation.’ She blushed.

‘Since ven has a Martian been talking Greek?’ asked the engineer, trying to get some toehold on reality.

‘I found a knowledge of the Greek alphabet essential to my study of Terrestrial mathematical treatises,’ explained Sarmishkidu, ‘and having gone so far, I proceeded to learn the vocabulary and grammar as well. After all, time is money, I estimate my time as being conservatively worth five pounds an hour, and so by using knowledge already acquired for one purpose as the first step in gaining knowledge of another field, I saved study time worth almost—’

‘But I’m afraid Herr von Himmelschmidt is not a follower of the doctrines of the Neo-Classical Enlightenment,’ interrupted Emily Croft. ‘I mean, as first expounded by Isadora and Raymond Duncan. I regret to say that Herr von Him
melschmidt is only interested in the, er,’ she blushed again, charmingly, ‘less laudable passages out of Aristophanes.’

‘They are
filthy
,’ murmured Sarmishkidu with a reminiscent leer.

‘And I mean, please don’t think I have any race prejudices or anything,’ went on the girl, ‘but it’s just undeniable that Herr von Himmelschmidt isn’t, well, isn’t meant for classical dancing.’

‘No,’ agreed Herr Syrup after a careful study. ‘No, he is not.’

Emily cocked her head at him. ‘I don’t suppose you would be interested?’ Her tone was wistful.

Herr Syrup rubbed his bald pate, blew out his drooping mustache, and looked down past his paunch at his Number Twelve boots. ‘Is classical dancing done barefoot?’ he asked.

‘Yes! And vine crowned, in the dew at dawn!’

‘I vas afraid of dat,’ sighed Herr Syrup. ‘No, t’anks.’

‘Well,’ said the girl. Her head bent a little.

‘But I am not so bad at de hambo,’ offered Herr Syrup.

‘No, thank you,’ said Miss Croft.

‘Vill you not sit down and have a beer vit’ us?’

‘Zeus, no!’ She grimaced. ‘How could you? I mean, that awful stuff just calcifies the liver.’

‘Miss Croft drinken only der pure spring vater und eaten der fruits,’ said Sarmishkidu von Himmelschmidt rather grimly.

‘Well, but really, Mister Syrup,’ said the girl, ‘it’s ever so much more natural than, oh, all this raw meat and – well, I mean if we had no other reason to know it, couldn’t you just tell the Erse are barbarians from that dreadful stuff they drink, and all the bacon and floury potatoes and – Well, I mean to say, really.’

Herr Syrup sat down by his stein, unconvinced. Emily
perched herself on the table top and accepted a few grapes from a bowl of same which Sarmishkidu handed her in a gingerly fashion. The Martian then scuttled back to his own beer and pipe and a dish of pretzels.

‘Do you know yust vat dese crazy Ersers is intending to do, anyhow?’ asked Herr Syrup.

The girl clouded up again. ‘That’s what I came to see you about, Mr. Sarmishkidu,’ she said. Her pleasant lower lip quivered. ‘That terrible Major McConnell! The big noisy red one. I mean, he keeps speaking to me!’

‘I am afraid,’ began the Martian, ‘that it is not in my province to—’

‘Oh, but I mean, he stopped me in the street just now! He, he bowed and – and asked me to – Oh, no!’ Emily buried her face in her hands trembling.

‘To vat?’ barked Herr Syrup, full of chivalrous indignation.

‘He asked me if … if … I would … oh … would
go to the cinema
with him!’

‘Vy, vat is playing?’ asked Herr Syrup, interested.

‘How should I know? It certainly isn’t Aeschylus. It isn’t even Euripides!’ Emily raised a flushed small countenance and shifted gears to wrath. ‘I thought, Mr Sarmishkidu, I mean, we’ve been friends for a while now and we Greeks have to stick together and all that sort of thing, couldn’t you just refuse to sell him whisky? I mean, it would teach those barbarians a lesson, and it might even make them go home again, if they couldn’t buy whisky, and Major McConnell wouldn’t get a calcified liver.’

‘Speak of the divvil!’ bawled a hearty voice. Huge, military boots crashed on the stairs and Major Rory McConnell, all 200 redhaired centimeters of him, stalked down into the rathskeller. ‘Pour me a drop of cheer, boy. No, set out the
bottle an’ we’ll figure the score whin I’m done. For ’tis happy this day has become!’

‘Don’t!’ blazed Emily, leaping to her feet.

‘
Aber, aber
that whisky I sell at four bob the shot,’ said Sarmishkidu, slithering hastily off his bench.

Major McConnell made a gallant flourish toward the girl. ‘To be sure,’ he roared, ‘there’s no such thing as an unhappy day wi’ this colleen about. Surely the good God was in a rare mood whin she was borned, perhaps His favorite littlest angel had just won the spellin’ prize, for faith an’ I nivver seen a sweeter bundle of charms, not even on the Auld Sod herself whin I made me pilgrimage.’

‘Do you see what happens to people who, who eat meat and drink distilled beverages?’ said Emily to Herr Syrup. ‘They just turn into absolute oafs. I mean to say, you can hear their great feet stamping two kilometers off.’

McConnell sprawled onto a bench, leaning against the table and resting his great feet on the floor at the end of prodigious legs. He winked at the Earthman. ‘She’s the light darlin’ on her toes,’ he agreed, ‘but then she’s not just overburdened wi’ clothing. Whin I make her me missus, that’ll have to be changed a bit, but for now ’tis pleasant the sight is.’

‘Your wife?’ screamed Emily. ‘Why – why—’ She fought valiantly with herself. At last, in a prim tone: ‘I won’t say anything, Major McConnell, but you will find my reply in Aristophanes,
The Frogs
, lines—’

‘Here the bottle is,’ said Sarmishkidu, returning with a flask labelled
Callahan’s Rose of Tralee
125
Proof
. ‘Und mind you,’ he added, rolling a suspicious doorknob eye at the Erseman, ‘when it comes to paying the score, we will make with the analytical balances to show how much you have
getaken.’

‘So be it.’ McConnell yanked out the stopper and raised the bottle. ‘To the Glory of God an’ the Honor of Ireland!’ He caught Herr Syrup’s eye and added politely: ‘
Skaal
.’

The Dane lifted a grudging stein to him.

‘’ Tis the find day for celebratin’,’ burbled McConnell. ‘I’ve had the word from the engineering corps; our new droive unit tests out one hundred percent. They’ll have it ready to go in three weeks.’

‘Oh!’ gasped Emily. She retreated into a dark corner behind a beer keg. Even Sarmishkidu began to look seriously worried.

‘Vat ban all dis monkeyshining anyvay?’ demanded Herr Syrup.

‘Why, ’tis simple enough, ’tis,’ said the major. ‘Ye’re well aware the rare earth praseodymium has high value, since ’tis of critical importance to a geegee engine. Now the asteroid—’

‘Ja, I have read de proclamation. But vy did you have to land here at all? If Erse vants Lois, vy not attack Lois like honest men and not bodder my poor spaceship?’

McConnell frowned. ‘’Tis that would be the manly deed,’ he admitted. ‘Yit the opposition party, the Gaelic Socialists, may their cowardly souls fry in hell, happen to be in power at home, an’ they won’t sind the fleet ag’inst Laoighise; for the Anglians have placed heavy guard on it, in case of just such a frontal assault, an’ that base ace of aggression holds our Republic in check, for it shall never be said we were the first to start a war.’

He tilted the flask to his lips again and embarked on a lengthy harangue. Herr Syrup extracted from this that the Shamrock League, the other important political party in the Erse Cluster, favored a more vigorous foreign policy: though its chiefs would not also have agreed to an open battle with
the Anglian Navy. However, Scourge-of-the-Sassenach O’Toole was an extremist politician even for the League. He gathered men, weapons, and equipment, and set out unbeknownst to all on his own venture. His idea was first to occupy Grendel. This has been done without opposition; armed authority here consisted of one elderly constable with a truncheon. Of course, it was vital to keep the occupation unknown to the rest of the universe, since the Shamrock League Irredentist Expeditionary Force could not hope to fight off even a single gunboat sent from any regular fleet. The arrival of the
Mercury Girl
and the chance thus presented to announce a quarantine, was being celebrated up and down the inns of Grendel as unquestionably due to the personal intervention of good St. Patrick.

As for the longer-range scheme – oh, yes, the plan. Well, like most terraformed asteroids, Grendel had only a minimal gyrogravitic unit, powerful enough to give it a 24-hour rotational period (originally the little world had spun around once in three hours, which played the very devil with tea time) and an atmosphere retaining surface field of 980 cm./sec.
²
. Maintaining that much attraction, warming up the iron mass enough to compensate for the sun’s remoteness, and supplying electricity to the colonists, was as much as the Grendelian atomic-energy plant could do.

O’Toole’s boys had brought along a geegee of awesome dimensions. Installed at the center of mass and set to repulsor-beam, this one would be able to move the entire planetoid from its orbit.

‘Move it ag’inst Laoighise!’ cried McConnell. ‘An’ we’ve heavy artillery mounted, too. Ah, what think ye of that, me boy? How long do ye think the Anglian Navy will stand up ag’inst a warcraft of this size? Eh? Ha, ha! Drink to the
successful defense of Gaelic rights ag’inst wanton an’ unprovoked aggression!’

‘I t’ink maybe de Anglian Navy vait yust long enough to shoot two, t’ree atomic shells at you and den land de marines,’ said Herr Syrup dubiously.

‘Shell their own people livin’ here?’ answered McConnell. ‘No, even the Sassenach are not that grisly. There’ll not be a thing they can do but retire from the scene in all their ignominy. An’ faith, whin we return home wi’ poor auld lost Laoighise an’ put her into her rightful orbit with the ither Erse Cluster worlds—’

‘I t’ought her orbit vas orig’inally not de same as eider vun of your nations.’

‘Exactly, sir. For the first time since the Creation, Laoighise will be sailin’ where the Creator intended. Well, then, all Erse will rise to support us, the craven Gaelic Socialist cabinet will fall an’ the tide of victory sweep the Shamrock League to its proper place of government an’ your humble servant to the Ministry of Astronautics, which same portfolio Premier-to-be O’Toole has promised me for me help. An’ then ye’ll see Erse argosies plyin’ the deeps of space as never before in history – an’ me the skipper of the half of ’em!’

‘
Gud bevare’s
,’ said Herr Syrup.

McConnell rose with a bearlike bow at Emily, who had recovered enough composure to return into sight. ‘Of course, Grendel will thin be returned to Anglia,’ he said. ‘But her one finest treasure she’ll not bring home, a Stuart rose plucked to brighten a field of shamrocks.’

The girl lifted a brow and said coldly: ‘Do I understand, Major, that you wish to keep me forever as a shield against the Anglian Navy?’

McConnell flushed. ‘’Tis the necessity of so usin’ your
people that hurts every true Erse soul,’ he said, ‘an’ be sure if it were not certain that no harm could come to the civilians here, we’d never have embarked on the adventure.’ He brightened. ‘An’ faith, is it not well we did, since it has given me the sight of your sweet face?’

Emily turned her back and stamped one little foot.

‘Also your sweet legs,’ continued McConnell blandly, ‘an’ your sweet – er – Drink, Mister Syrup, drink up wi’ me to the rightin’ of wrongs an’ the succorin’ of the distressed!’

‘Like me,’ mumbled the engineer.

The girl whirled about. ‘But people will be hurt!’ she cried. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ve tried and tried to explain to you, my father’s tried, everyone on Grendel has and none of you will listen! It’s been forty years since our nations were last close enough together to have much contact. I mean, you just don’t know how the situation has changed in Anglia. You think you can steal Lois, and our government will swallow a
fait accompli
rather than start a war – the way yours did when we first took it. But ours won’t. Old King James died ten years ago. King Charles is a young man – a fire-eater – and the P.M. claims descent from Sir Winston Churchill – they won’t accept it! I mean to say, your government will either have to repudiate you and give Lois back, or there’ll be interplanetary war!’