The Ethical Engineer

ends of bolts. But theyare so big--"

  "They would have to be if they hold the entire metal case on. I thinkwe are getting very close now to the mystery of how to open theengine--and this is the time to be careful. I still can't believe itis as easy as this to crack the secret. I'm going to whittle a woodentemplate of the nut, then have a wrench made. While I'm gone you staydown here and pick all the metal off the bolt and out of the screwthreads. I can put off doing it while we think this thing through, butsooner or later I'm going to have to take a stab at turning one ofthose nuts. And I find it very hard to forget about that mustard gas."

  Making the wrench put a small strain on the local technology and allof the old men who enjoyed the title of Masters of the Still went intoconsultation over it. One of them was a fair blacksmith and after aritual sacrifice and a round of prayers he shoved a bar of iron intothe charcoal and Jason pumped the bellows until it glowed white hot.With much hammering and cursing it was laboriously formed into asturdy open-end wrench with an offset head to get at the countersunknuts. Jason made sure that the opening was slightly undersized, thentook the untempered wrench to the work site and filed the jaws to anexact fit. After being reheated and quenched in oil he had the toolthat he hoped would do the job.

  * * * * *

  Edipon must have been keeping track of the work progress because hewas waiting near the engine when Jason returned with the completedwrench.

  "I have been under," he announced, "and have seen the nuts that thedevilish Appsalanoj have concealed within solid metal. Who would havesuspected! It still seems to me impossible that one metal could behidden within another, how could that be done?"

  "Easy enough. The base of the assembled engine was put into a form andthe molten covering metal poured into it. It must have a much lowermelting point than the steel of the engine so there would be nodamage. They just have a better knowledge of metal technology in thecity and counted on your ignorance."

  "Ignorance! You insult--"

  "I take it back. I just meant they thought they could get away withthe trick, and since they didn't they are the stupid ones. Does thatsatisfy you?"

  "What do you do next?"

  "I take off the nuts and when I do there is a good chance that thepoison-hood will be released and can simply be lifted off."

  "It is too dangerous for you to do, the fiends may still have othertraps ready when the nut is turned. I will send a strong slave to turnthem while we watch from a distance, his death will not matter."

  "I'm touched by your concern for my health, but as much as I wouldlike to take advantage of the offer, I cannot. I've been over the sameground and reached the reluctant conclusion that this is one job ofwork that I have to do myself. Taking off those nuts looks entirelytoo easy, and that's what makes me suspicious. I'm going to do it andlook out for any more trickery at the same time--and that is somethingthat only I can do. Now I suggest you withdraw with the troops to asafer spot."

  There was no hesitation about leaving, footsteps rustled quickly onthe sand and Jason was alone. The leather walls flapped slackly in thewind and there was no other sound. Jason spat on his palms, controlleda slight shiver and slid into the pit. The wrench fitted neatly overthe nut, he wrapped both hands around it and, bracing his leg againstthe pit wall, began to pull.

  And stopped. Three turns of thread on the bolt projected below thenut, scraped clean of metal by the industrious Mikah. Something aboutthem looked very wrong but he didn't know quite what.

  "Mikah," he shouted, and had to call loudly two more times before hisassistant poked his head tentatively around the screen. "Nip over tothe petroleum works and get me one of their bolts threaded with a nut,any size, it doesn't matter."

  Jason warmed his hands by the stove until Mikah returned with the oilybolt, then waved him out to rejoin the others. Back in the pit he heldit up next to the protruding section of Appsalan bolt and chortledwith joy. The threads on the angle bolt were canted at a slightlydifferent angle: where one ran up, the other ran down. The Appsalanthreads had been cut in reverse, with a lefthand thread.

  Throughout the galaxy there existed as many technical and culturaldifferences as there were planets, yet one of the few things they allhad in common, inherited from their terrestrial ancestors, was auniformity of thread. Jason had never thought about it before, butwhen he mentally ran through his experiences on different planets herealized that they were all the same. Screws went into wood, boltswent into threaded holes and nuts all went onto bolts when you turnedthem with a clockwise motion. Counterclockwise removed them. In hishand was the crude D'zertano nut and bolt, and when he tried it itmoved in the same manner. But the engine bolt did not work thatway--it had to be turned clockwise to _remove_ it.

  * * * * *

  Dropping the nut and bolt he placed the wrench on the massive enginebolt and slowly applied pressure in what felt like the completelywrong direction, as if he were tightening not loosening. It gaveslowly, first a quarter then a half turn. And bit by bit theprojection threads vanished until they were level with the surface ofthe nut. It turned easily now and within a minute it fell into thepit--he threw the wrench after it and scrambled out. Standing at theedge he carefully sniffed the air, ready to run at the slightest smellof gas. There was nothing.

  The second nut came off as easily as the first and with no illeffects. Jason pushed a sharp chisel between the upper case and thebaseplate where he had removed the solder, and when he leaned on itthe case shifted slightly, held down only by its own weight.

  From the entrance to the enclosure he shouted to the group huddled inthe distance. "Come on back--this job is almost finished."

  They all took turns at sliding into the pit and looking at theprojecting bolts and made appreciative sounds when Jason leaned on thechisel and showed how the case was free.

  "There is still the little matter of taking it off," he told them,"and I'm sure that grabbing and heaving is the wrong way. That was myfirst idea too, but the people who assembled that thing had some badtrouble in store for anyone who tightened those nuts instead ofloosening them. Until we find out what that is we are going to treadvery lightly. Do you have any big blocks of ice around here, Edipon?It is winter now, isn't it?"

  "Ice? Winter?" Edipon mumbled, caught off guard by the change ofdirection, rubbing abstractedly at the reddened tip of his prominentnose. "Of course it is winter. Ice, there must be ice at the higherlakes in the mountain, they are always frozen at this time of theyear. But what do you want ice for?"

  "You get it and I'll show you. Have it cut in nice flat blocks that Ican stack. I'm not going to lift the hood--I'm going to drop theengine out from underneath it!"

  By the time the slaves had brought the ice down from the distant lakesJason had rigged a strong wooden frame flat on the ground around theengine and pushed sharpened metal wedges under the hood, then hadsecured the wedges to the frame. Now, if the engine was lowered intothe pit, the hood would stay above supported by the wedges. The icewould take care of this. Jason built a foundation of ice under theengine then slipped out the supporting bars. Now as the ice slowlymelted the engine would be gently lowered into the pit.

  The weather remained cold and the ice refused to melt until Jason hadthe pit ringed with smoking oil stoves. Water began to run down intothe pit and Mikah went to work bailing it out, while the gap betweenthe hood and the baseplate widened. The melting continued for the restof the day and almost all of the night. Red-eyed and exhausted Jasonand Mikah supervised the soggy sinking and when the D'zertanojreturned at dawn the engine rested safely in a pool of mud on thebottom of the pit: the hood was off.

  "They're tricky devils over there in Appsala, but Jason dinAlt wasn'tborn yesterday," he exulted. "Do you see that crock sitting there ontop of the engine," he pointed to a sealed container of thick glassthe size of a small barrel, filled with an oily greenish liquid; itwas clamped down tightly with padded supports. "That's the booby trap.The nuts I took off were
on the threaded ends of two bars that heldthe hood on, but instead of being fastened directly to the hood theywere connected by a crossbar that rested on top of that jug. If eithernut was tightened instead of being loosened, the bar would have bentand broken the glass. I'll give you exactly one guess as to what wouldhave happened then."

  "The poison liquid!"

  "None other. And the double-walled hood is filled with it, too. Isuggest that as soon as we have dug a deep hole in the desert the hoodand container be buried and forgotten about. I doubt if the engine hasmany other surprises in store, but I'll be careful as I work on it."

  "You can fix it? You know what is wrong with it?" Edipon was vibratingwith joy.

  "Not