“There are some matters we must discuss first,” he said quietly.
XIX: NEW BARGAIN
Dead silence reigned in the screen room. The head of the tiny Mesklinite filled the screen, but no one could interpret the expression on the completely unhuman “face.” No one could think of anything to say; asking Barlennan what he meant would be a waste of words, since he obviously planned to tell anyway. He waited for long moments before resuming his speech; and when he did, he used better English than even Lackland realized he had acquired.
“Dr. Rosten, a few moments ago you said that you owed us more than you could hope to repay. I realize that your words were perfectly sincere in one way — I do not doubt the actuality of your gratitude for a moment — but in another they were merely rhetorical. You had no intention of giving us any more than you had already agreed to supply-weather information, guidance across new seas, possibly the material aid Charles mentioned some time ago in the matter of spice collecting. I realize fully that by your moral code I am entided to no more; I made an agreement and should adhere to it, particularly since your side of the bargain has largely been fulfilled already.
“However, I want more; and since I have come to value the opinions of some, at least, of your people I want to explain why I am doing diis — I want to justify myself, if possisible. I tell you now, though, that whether I succeed in gaining your sympathy or not, I will do exactly as I planned.
“I am a merchant, as you well know, primarily interested in exchanging goods for what profit I can get. You recognized that fact, offering me every material you could think of in return for my help; it was not your fault that none of it was of use to me. Your machines, you said, would not function in the gravity and pressure of my world; your metals I cannot use — and would not need if I could; they lie free on the surface in many parts of Mesklin. Some people use them for ornaments; but I know from talk with Charles that they cannot be fashioned into really intricate forms without great machines, or at least more heat than we can easily produce. We do know the thing you call fire, by the way, in ways more manageable than the flame cloud; I am sorry to have deceived Charles in that matter, but it seemed best to me at the time.
“To return to the original subject, I refused all but the guidance and weather information of the things you were willing to give. I thought some of you might be suspicious of. that, but I have heard no sign of it in your words. Nevertheless, I agreed to make a voyage longer than any that has been made in recorded history to help solve your problem. You had told me how badly you needed the knowledge; none of you appeared to think that I might want the same thing, though I asked time and again for just that when I saw one or another of your machines. You refused answers to those questions, making the same excuse every time. I felt, therefore, that any way in which I could pick up some of the ‘knowledge you people possess was legitimate. You have said, at one time or another, much about the value of what you call ‘science,’ and always implied was the fact that my people did not have it. I cannot see why, if it is good and valuable to your people, it would not be equally so to mine.
“You can see what I am leading up to. I came on this voyage with exactly the same objective in my mind that was in yours when you sent me; I came to learn. I want to know the things by which you perform such remarkable acts. You, Charles, lived all winter in a place that should have killed you at once, by the aid of that science; it could make as much difference in the lives of my people, I am sure you will agree.
“Therefore I offer you a new bargain. I realize that my failure to live up to the letter of the old one may make you reluctant to conclude another with me. That will be simply too bad; I make no bones about pointing out that you can do nothing else. You are not here; you cannot come here;
granting that you might drop some of your explosives down here in anger, you will not do so as long as I am near this machine of yours. The agreement is simple: knowledge for knowledge. You teach me, or Dondragmer, or anyone else in my crew who has the time and ability to learn the material, all the time we are working to take this machine apart for you and transmit the knowledge it contains.”