Lillian Ransby came out of the headquarters hut. "Ayesha's coming
down this afternoon, with a lot of equipment," she said. "We're
not exactly going to count air molecules in the sound waves, but
we'll do everything short of that. We'll need more lab space,
soundproofed."
"Tell Dave Questell what you want," Meillard said. "Do you really
think you can get anything?"
She shrugged. "If there's anything there to get. How long it'll
take is another question."
* * * * *
The two sixty-foot collapsium-armored turtles settled to the ground
and went off contragravity. The ports opened, and things began being
floated off on lifter-skids: framework for the water tower, and
curved titanium sheets for the tank. Anna de Jong said something
about hot showers, and not having to take any more sponge-baths.
Howell was watching the stuff come off the other landing craft. A
dozen pairs of four-foot wagon wheels, with axles. Hoes, in bundles.
Scythe blades. A hand forge, with a crank-driven fan blower, and a
hundred and fifty pound anvil, and sledges and cutters and swages
and tongs.
Everybody was busy, and Mom and Sonny were fidgeting, gesturing
toward the work with their own empty hands. _Hey, boss; whatta
we gonna do?_ He patted them on the shoulders.
"Take it easy." He hoped his tone would convey nonurgency.
"We'll find something for you to do."
He wasn't particularly happy about most of what was coming off.
Giving these Svants tools was fine, but it was more important to
give them technologies. The people on the ship hadn't thought of
that. These wheels, now; machined steel hubs, steel rims, tubular
steel spokes, drop-forged and machined axles. The Svants wouldn't
be able to copy them in a thousand years. Well, in a hundred, if
somebody showed them where and how to mine iron and how to smelt
and work it. And how to build a steam engine.
He went over and pulled a hoe out of one of the bundles. Blades
stamped out with a power press, welded to tubular steel handles.
Well, wood for hoe handles was hard to come by on a spaceship, even
a battle cruiser almost half a mile in diameter; he had to admit
that. And they were about two thousand per cent more efficient than
the bronze scrapers the Svants used. That wasn't the idea, though.
Even supposing that the first wave of colonists came out in a year
and a half, it would be close to twenty years before Terran-operated
factories would be in mass production for the native trade. The idea
was to teach these people to make better things for themselves; give
them a leg up, so that the next generation would be ready for
contragravity and nuclear and electric power.
Mom didn't know what to make of any of it. Sonny did, though; he
was excited, grabbing Howell's arm, pointing, saying, "_Ghroogh_!
_Ghroogh_!" He pointed at the wheels, and then made a stooping,
lifting and pushing gesture. _Like wheelbarrow?_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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