"Yes."
Tet'h smiled once more and offered his hand.
"Universal gesture?" asked Hammond.
"No. Drake must have taught them that."
"Drake?" asked Tet'h. "You like?"
"Extremely doubtful," said Hammond. He was misunderstood. McBride said
nothing but that pinching of the nose between thumb and forefinger
conveyed the idea excellently.
"Telfans ... no like Drake."
"No?"
"No. Tall. Ugly-bald." Tet'h indicated his own luxurious pelt and
then became confused as he realized that the Terrans were of the
same, "Ugly-bald" complexion. He covered his face with both hands and
muttered something that sounded apologetic and humble.
"Forget it," laughed McBride. "We ... like Telfans."
"Not like Drake," said Tet'h.
"Thanks," said Hammond honestly.
"How know ... here?" asked Timkins.
"You here?" asked Tet'h pointing to the ship and the surrounding
landscape.
"Aren't we?" grinned Timkins.
"Save the fine rhetoric for later when they get the point of double
talk," suggested Hammond.
* * * * *
Tet'h led them to the plane and Gormal and Elyon lifted a large case
out. Tet'h opened it and handed McBride a little instrument. It was a
cabinetless job, every part exposed.
"Holy spinach," he said. "A mechanogravitic detector."
Hammond got a small mechanical planetarium showing Telfu and a minute
sphere. Tet'h pulled a roller-map out of the base and indicated Telfu
and the sphere. The map was a fairly accurate contour map of the
blanketed region's contour.
Tet'h signified the cusp and then pointed to the position of Soaky.
Below the cusp, Tet'h indicated the planet and then pointed to the
ground.
"Here," he said.
McBride and Hammond tangled in an effort to shake Tet'h's hand. The
Telfan looked proud.
"Many years," he said haltingly. "Work," indicating the detector. He
made assembly motions. He pulled a book of mathematical identities
from a pocket and said: "Found ... here." Then he made vast motions
indicating a large construction. "Many years ... try like hell ... no
work." He indicated the small satellite. "He make stop."
"Bright lads," grinned Hammond. "Their civilization was ready to
discover the gravitic spectra. They did. They found it in math. They
tried it and it didn't click too well. They discovered why. Never
having anything of any great power operating, they never got to the
point where they could build anything big enough to get off of Telfu.
Just plain stuck. Well, fellers, if that moonlet is cupralum, I can see
a lot of birds mining it."
"How're they going to land on it? Nothing gravitic will be worth a hoot
that close."
"Lift 'em off the dead spot by battery-powered gravitics. Inefficient
as hell. Get into space and then use rockets to land on that moonlet.
Mine it. Load it full of detonite and blast."
"A hundred-mile moonlet?"
"They've got a nine-thousand-mile planet here to support it. They
can't power their machinery with gravitrons, but electronics is an art
worth remembering. One of the earlier atomic gadgets would do plenty."
"Might bore a large hole in it and pack in a mile of Atomite,"
suggested McBride. "I'd hate to support that, though."
"Better get some seetee meteors and pelt it by remote control," said
Hammond. "Well, we can cover that later." To Tet'h he said: "You come
in?"
Tet'h and Thani held a quick conference. "She come, too?" he asked.
"All of you."
"No. They stay. We go Terra."
"Terra!" exploded Hammond.
"Much to learn--both of us. You and I. You learn Telfan. We learn
Terran. Better talk. This ... lousy."
"Easy to see Sandra's delicate hand in this language lesson," grinned
Timkins.
"Better call that wild woman. Tell her we're going to take off in one
hour and ten minutes because if we don't, we'll be as stuck as she is
and we don't like that. As long as we have a bit of Telfu to take back
with us in the shape of Tet'h and his woman Thani, we needn't stick
around. I'll feel better about getting off on this rotation anyway.
G'wan, we'll listen to you make the excuses, Larry."
"My turn to poke her on the pretty little schnozzola?"
"You won that by that three times something to the minus umpty-umpth
power percentage of landing error. Twelve feet in what?"
"2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet."
"Was that the same he said before?" asked McBride with a smile. "Or was
he working that old gag about our not remembering?"
"I don't remember either."
"So, you win," said McBride to Larry Timkins.
* * * * *
Timkins called, and Sandra Drake's slightly hysterical voice replied.
"How you doing?" asked Larry.
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know?" said Sandra. Her voice went up in a crescendo and hit "G"
above High "C" on the last note.
"No," said Larry. "Chicago, Venuland, Canalport, and Sharon are my best
landmarks and they're all equally distant and in the same direction
from here."
"Go to hell."
"That's across the River Styx from Sharon, on Pluto," said Timkins.
"And that expression is making the Sharonites unhappy because people
have been going there for thousands of years. Sharon hasn't the
popularity."
"But look, Larry, I want to go along."
"Can you get here in one hour and eleven minutes. That's the absolute
deadline until we can get to Terra and cook up a drive that's detuned
enough from the cupralum-absorption region to permit us to tinker off
and on around here."
"Where are you? How can I get there if you don't know where you are?"
"Ask someone."
Sandra's language became something that the communications commission
has legislated against.
"Can you come here and get me?"
"We'll be doing fine if we get off with our skin," said Larry. "We
definitely have not enough power to go roaming all over Telfu. We're on
the one spot that will allow us to leave under the emergencies. An hour
and thirty minutes from now that spot will be somewhere else. We'll
wait an hour and ten and take off on the edge of the spot."
"Won't they come back and get me?"
"Wait a minute." Then he turned to Tet'h. "Could you send them back for
Drake?"
"Yes," answered Tet'h. "Better not, though. She bad ... but lazy. Teach
Terran so not ... learn Telfan."
"Sandra? No dice. That's it, toots. Take it or leave it."
"Look, Larry, isn't there something you can do?"
"I doubt it. Give you a tip, though. Next time you poke someone else's
nose into a mess remember that he who laughs last isn't always too
dumb to catch on quick. At the next sound, it will be exactly three
people making with deep belly laughs. So long, until we meet again--in
about six months! In-you, we're at these Telfan co-ordicidentally, if
you should find someone who would like to get rid of nates: South
Longitude.... Hey, Tet'h, how do you pronounce these figures?"