The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (29 page)

Yaggata
: What'd you try
first
?

Gustin
: Just a plain loop harness. Pap made a loop big enough to pass around the rollit. He clucked the beast into the loop, dropped the bight around near the top front—that is, around the end away from the plow. A rollit doesn't rightly have a front. Then he ordered the beast to pull. That rollit leaned into the line like it knew what it was doing. The plow moved forward about four feet, then the line was down where it slipped under the beast. Pap clucked it back into the harness and ordered it forward again. About three times that way and it was clear he'd never get his plowing done if he had to reharness every four feet.

Yaggata
: Were your neighbors watching all this?

Gustin
: Yes. By the second day the whole district was in on the joke. And we had a full flap in our compound and were really hupping it.

Yaggata
: What'd he try next?

Gustin
: A kind of web harness with rollers. It took us three days to make it. Meanwhile, we tried a vertical harness that went over the top and under the rollit. We greased the area that contacted the rollit, but the grease wouldn't last. As soon as it was gone, the harness would rub. Our rollit could rub through the toughest harness in about ten revolutions.

Yaggata
: How'd the web harness work?

Gustin
: It really wasn't a bad idea—better than what our neighbors were using right then if he'd perfected it.

Yaggata
: What were your neighbors using?

Gustin
: A kind of corral on wheels with rollers along the front to contact the front of the rollit. It had harness rings on the back. They opened one side to let the rollit in, hooked on the equipment, and the rollit pulled the whole rig.

Yaggata
: I'm curious. Why didn't your father sneak over and watch his neighbors using their rollits?

Gustin
: He tried. But they were all onto him. Our neighbors were just never using their beasts when pap came around. It was like a comic formal dance. They'd invite him in for a drink of chicker. Pap would remark about their plowing. He'd ask to look over their equipment, but there'd never be anything around that even remotely resembled rollit harness.

Yaggata
: Uh … what was wrong with the web harness he tried?

Gustin
: Pap hadn't made the web big enough to belly completely around the front of the rollit. And then the rollers kept fouling because he hadn't perfected a good sling system.

Yaggata
: How did he finally solve the problem?

Gustin
: He calmed down and started thinking straight. First, he put the plow out in the center of our compound. Then he stationed the rollit all around the plow, first one side then the other. And just like that—he had it.

Yaggata
: I must be a little slow on obvious associations myself. Something has just occurred to me. Was your father the inventor of the standard rollitor?

Gustin
: It was his idea.

Mrs. Kilkau
: Uncle Gus! You never told us your father was an inventor! I never realized …

Gustin
: He wasn't an inventor. He was just a darned good practical pioneer. As far as thinking up the original rollitor is concerned, that'd be obvious to anyone who'd given it a second's thought. What do you think the Gomeisa Historical Society has been trying to …

Mrs. Kilkau
: Do you mean that musty old junk out in the number two warehouse?

Gustin
: That
musty old junk
includes your mother's first swamp cream tritchet!
7
And right spang in the middle of that
musty old junk
is the first rollitor!

Yaggata
: Do you mean you have the original rollitor right here?

Gustin
: Right out back in the warehouse.

Yaggata
: Why … that thing's priceless! Could we go out and see it now?

Gustin
: Don't see why not.

Mrs. Kilkau
: Oh, Uncle Gus! It's so dirty out there and …

Gustin
: A little dirt never hurt anyone, Bessie! Uhhhgh! That knee where the fangbird got me is giving me more trouble this week. Too bad we don't have any rollits around nowadays. There's nothing like a rollit massage to pep up the circulation.

Yaggata
: Have
you
had an encounter with a fangbird?

Gustin
: Oh, sure. A couple of times.

Yaggata
: Could you tell us about it?

Gustin
: Later, son, Let's go look at the rollitor.

(Editor: A raw splice break has been left on the wire at this point and should be repaired.)

Yaggata
: Here we are in a corner of warehouse number two. Those stacked boxes you see in the background are cases of swamp cream so important to the cosmetic industry—and the chief output of the Gustin-Kilkau Ranch.

Gustin
: This here's a trench climber used for mining the raw copper we discovered in the fumerole region.

Yaggata
: And this must be the original rollitor attached to this plow.

Gustin
: That's right. It's a simple thing rightly enough: just four wooden rollers set in two ‘V's,' one set of rollers above the other, and the whole rig attached directly to the plow at the rear.

Yaggata
: They're quite large rollers.

Gustin
: We had a big rollit. You see this ratchet thing in here?

Yaggata
: Yes.

Gustin
: That adjusted the height of the rollers and the distance between the two sets to fit the frontal curve of our rollit. The rollit just moved up against these rollers. One set of rollers rode high on the beast's frontal curve, and the other set of rollers rode low. The rollit kind of wedged in between them and pushed.

Yaggata
: What are these wheels on the plow frame?

Gustin
: They kept the plow riding level.

Yaggata
: It's really such a simple device.

Gustin
: Simple! We trained our rollit to plow all by itself!

Yaggata
: What'd your neighbors think of that?

Gustin
: I'll tell you they stopped laughing at pap! Inside of a forty-day, the old tow corrals were all discarded. They called the new rigs Gustin rollitors for awhile, but the name soon got shortened.

Mrs. Kilkau
: I never realized! To think! Right here in our own warehouse! Why … the Historical Society …

Gustin
: They can wait until I've passed on! I get a deal of satisfaction coming out here occasionally and just touching this
musty old junk.
It does you good to remember where you came from.

Mrs. Kilkau
: But, Uncle Gus …

Gustin
: And you came from dirt-farming pioneers, Bessie! Fine people! There wouldn't be any of this soft living you enjoy today if it weren't for them and this
musty old junk
!

Mrs. Kilkau
: But I think it's selfish of you, keeping these
priceless
 …

Gustin
: Sure it's selfish! But that's a privilege of those who've done their jobs well, and lived long enough to look back awhile. If you'll consider a minute, gal, I'm the one who saw what swamp cream did for the complexion. I've got a right to be selfish!

Mrs. Kilkau
: Yes, Uncle Gus. I've heard that story.

Yaggata
: But
we
haven't heard it, Mr. Gustin. Would you care to …

Gustin
: Yes, I'd care to … but some other time, son. Right now I'm a wicky tired, and I'd better get some rest.

Yaggata
: Certainly, sir! Shall we set the time for …

Gustin
: I'll call you, son. Don't you call me. Uuuuugh! Damned fangbird wound! But I'll tell you one thing, son: I've changed my mind about this frip-frap of yours. It does us all good to see where we came from. If the people who see that record of yours have any brains, they'll think about where they came from. Do 'em good!

(Editor: Wire ends here. Attached note says Hilmot Gustin takes ill the following day. The second interview was delayed indefinitely.)

Senator Zolam
: Do you have further records to introduce at this time, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary Hablar
: I was hoping my Assistant Secretary for Cultural Affairs could make it here today. Unfortunately, he was called to an intercultural function with representatives of the Ring Planets.

Saboteur McKie
: That was my doing, Mr. Secretary. The committee members are pressed for time today.

Secretary Hablar
: I see.

Senator Zolam
: There being no further business, the Special Subcommittee on Intergalactic Culture stands adjourned until 1600 tomorrow.

 

OLD RAMBLING HOUSE

On his last night on Earth, Ted Graham stepped out of a glass-walled telephone booth, ducked to avoid a swooping moth that battered itself in a frenzy against a bare globe above the booth.

Ted Graham was a long-necked man with a head of pronounced egg shape topped by prematurely balding sandy hair. Something about his lanky, intense appearance suggested his occupation: certified public accountant.

He stopped behind his wife, who was studying a newspaper classified page, and frowned. “They said to wait here. They'll come get us. Said the place is hard to find at night.”

Martha Graham looked up from the newspaper. She was a doll-faced woman, heavily pregnant, a kind of pink prettiness about her. The yellow glow from the light above the booth subdued the red auburn cast of her ponytail hair.

“I just
have
to be in a house when the baby's born,” she said. “What'd they sound like?”

“I dunno. There was a funny kind of interruption—like an argument in some foreign language.”

“Did they sound foreign?”

“In a way.” He motioned along the night-shrouded line of trailers toward one with two windows glowing amber. “Let's wait inside. These bugs out here are fierce.”

“Did you tell them which trailer is ours?”

“Yes. They didn't sound at all anxious to look at it. That's odd—them wanting to trade their house for a trailer.”

“There's nothing odd about it. They've probably just got itchy feet like we did.”

He appeared not to hear her. “Funniest-sounding language you ever heard when that argument started—like a squirt of noise.”

Inside the trailer, Ted Graham sat down on the green couch that opened into a double bed for company.

“They could use a good tax accountant around here,” he said. “When I first saw the place, I got that definite feeling. The valley looks prosperous. It's a wonder nobody's opened an office here before.”

His wife took a straight chair by the counter separating kitchen and living area, folded her hands across her heavy stomach.

“I'm just continental tired of wheels going around under me,” she said. “I want to sit and stare at the same view for the rest of my life. I don't know how a trailer ever seemed glamorous when—”

“It was the inheritance gave us itchy feet,” he said.

Tires gritted on gravel outside.

Martha Graham straightened. “Could that be them?”

“Awful quick, if it is.” He went to the door, opened it, stared down at the man who was just raising a hand to knock.

“Are you Mr. Graham?” asked the man.

“Yes.” He found himself staring at the caller.

“I'm Clint Rush. You called about the house?” The man moved farther into the light. At first, he'd appeared an old man, fine wrinkle lines in his face, a tired leather look to his skin. But as he moved his head in the light, the wrinkles seemed to dissolve—and with them, the years lifted from him.

“Yes, we called,” said Ted Graham. He stood aside. “Do you want to look at the trailer now?”

Martha Graham crossed to stand beside her husband. “We've kept it in awfully good shape,” she said. “We've never let anything get seriously wrong with it.”

She sounds too anxious,
though Ted Graham.
I wish she'd let me do the talking for the two of us.

“We can come back and look at your trailer tomorrow in daylight,” said Rush. “My car's right out here, if you'd like to see our house.”

Ted Graham hesitated. He felt a nagging worry tug at his mind, tried to fix his attention on what bothered him.

“Hadn't we better take our car?” he asked. “We could follow you.”

“No need,” said Rush. “We're coming back into town tonight anyway. We can drop you off then.”

Ted Graham nodded. “Be right with you as soon as I lock up.”

Inside the car, Rush mumbled introductions. His wife was a dark shadow in the front seat, her hair drawn back in a severe bun. Her features suggested gypsy blood. He called her Raimee.

Odd name,
thought Graham. And he noticed that she, too, gave the strange first impression of age that melted in a shift of light.

Mrs. Rush turned her gypsy features toward Martha Graham. “You are going to have a baby?”

It came out as an odd, veiled statement.

Abruptly, the car rolled forward.

Martha Graham said, “It's supposed to be born in about two months. We hope it's a boy.”

Mrs. Rush looked at her husband. “I have changed my mind,” she said.

Rush spoke without taking his attention from the road. “It is too…” He broke off, spoke in a tumble of strange sounds.