Conquest Over Time Part 6

"But Trav, I still don't get it. I've been thinkin' all night, all the while you were gone...."

"The planet Pluto," Travis said evenly, "was discovered by Earthmen, finally, in the year 1930. At that time we were approximately 300 years ahead, technologically, of the people of Mert. A similar case exists for Neptune, which was not discovered, although adequate telescopes had long been in use, until 1846." He paused and gazed happily around. "Does the light dawn?"

"Holy cow!"

"Exactly. Diomed is a nine planet system. For which 'fack' thank old Ed Horton, who returned a favor done many years ago. Luck? Only if doing favors for people is lucky. Which I suppose you could make a case for. But in the astrology of Diomed III--an astrology I took great pains to understand--how many planets are considered? Let us examine. Rym, Fors, Lyndal, Bonken, Huck, Weepen, and Sharb. And then there are also the two 'lights,' that is, the sun and the moon. But how many _planets_ are there? Counting Mert as one, add them up. It comes out eight. Not nine. Eight. But Diomed is a nine planet system.

Bless Ed Horton. What happened to the missing planet?"

Dahlinger w h o o p e d. "They didn't know they had one!"

Travis grinned. "With surety. They didn't know it existed. If they had their astrology would certainly have shown it. So it had obviously, like our own Pluto at a similar time, never been discovered."

He paused once again while Dahlinger and Trippe regarded him with delight.

"And you," Trippe said, "you showed them where it was."

Travis clucked. "I did not. For one thing, I didn't know where it was.

I simply told him, very regretfully, that there _was_ one, but the situation being what it was, I couldn't allow him to use our telescopes to plot its...o...b..t. Unless, you see, there existed a concrete agreement between us.

"I added that I had heard that Earthmen would shortly be leaving his planet. Very unhappily I told him he could not expect to produce a telescope of the necessary power within at least the next hundred years. And even then, it would be many more years before they actually found it. I was very sorry about the whole business, so I just thought I'd drop by to offer my regrets."

"And he leaped at the chance."

"No. You rush to conclusions. He did not leap at the chance. He sat very quietly thinking about it. It was a gruesome sight. I could sympathize with him. On the one hand he had us, the unknown, moon-moving Us, with which he wanted no traffic whatever. But on the other side there was the knowledge of that planet moving all unwatched out in the black, casting down its radiations, be they harmful or good, and no way to know in what sign the thing was, or what house, or what effect it would have on him, _was having_ on him, even as he sat there. Oh he struggled, but I knew I had him. He signed the contract.

I think I may say, that it is among the most liberal contracts we have ever signed."

There was a long moment of silence in the s.h.i.+p. The young men sat grinning foolishly.

"So let me hear no more about luck," said Travis firmly. "In the future, sons, put your shoulders to the wheel...."

But the attention of the two was already wandering. They were both beginning to gaze once more upon the lovely Navel, who was quite shyly but very womanly gazing back. He saw Trippe look at Dahlinger, Dahlinger glare at Trippe, their hackles rising. He looked down at Navel in alarm.

Born to cause trouble?

Oh no, he thought abruptly, seeing a whole new world beginning to open up, oh no, oh no....