All in all, he assured himself, they’d made a good beginning. The cargo sled and ship were swinging in tight orbits, the cargo had been ferried down and on this small peninsula, jutting out into the lake, they had as much security as one might reasonably expect on any alien planet. The Garsonians, of course, were not belligerent, but even so one could never afford to skip security.
He finished eating and pushed the plate aside. He pulled a portfolio out of a stack of maps and paper work lying on the desk. Slowly he untied the tapes and slid the contents out. For the hundredth time, at least, he started going through the summary of reports brought back to Central Trading by the first two expeditions.
Man first had come to the planet more than twenty years ago to make a preliminary check, bringing back field notes, photographs and samples. It had been mere routine; there had been no thorough or extensive survey. There had been no great hope nor expectation; it had been simply another job to do. Many planets were similarly spot-checked, and in nineteen out of twenty of them, nothing ever came of it.
But something very definite had come of it in the case of Garson IV.
The something was a tuber that appeared quite ordinary, pretty much, in fact, like an undersize, shriveled-up potato. Brought back by the survey among other odds and ends picked up on the planet, it had in its own good time been given routine examination and analysis by the products laboratory – with startling results.
From the podar, the tuber’s native designation, had been derived a drug which had been given a long and agonizing name and had turned out to be the almost perfect tranquilizer. It appeared to have no untoward side-effects; it was not lethal if taken in too enthusiastic dosage; it was slightly habit-forming, a most attractive feature for all who might be concerned with the sale of it.
To a race vitally concerned with an increasing array of disorders traceable to tension, such a drug was a boon, indeed. For years, a search for such a tranquilizer had been carried on in the laboratories and here it suddenly was, a gift from a new-found planet.
Within an astonishingly short time, considering the deliberation with which Central Trading usually operated, a second expedition had been sent out to Carson IV, with the robotic team heavily transmogged as trade experts, psychologists and diplomatic functionaries. For two years the team had worked, with generally satisfactory results. When they had blasted off for Earth, they carried a cargo of the podars, a mass of meticulously gathered data and a trade agreement under which the Garsonians agreed to produce and store the podars against the day when another team should arrive to barter for them.
And that, thought Sheridan, is us.
And it was all right, of course, except that they were late by fifteen years.
For Central Trading, after many conferences, had decided to grow the podar on Earth. This, the economists had pointed out, would be far cheaper than making the long and expensive trips that would be necessary to import them from a distant planet. That it might leave the Garsonians holding the bag insofar as the trade agreement was concerned seemed not to have occurred to anyone at all. Although, considering the nature of the Garsonians, they probably had not been put out too greatly.
For the Garsonians were a shiftless tribe at best and it had been with some initial difficulty that the second team had been able to explain to them the mechanics and desirability of interstellar trade. Although, in fairness, it might be said of them that, once they understood it, they had been able to develop a creditable amount of eagerness to do business.
Podars had taken to the soil of Earth with commendable adaptiveness. They had grown bigger and better than they’d ever grown on their native planet. This was not surprising when one took into account the slap-dash brand of agriculture practiced by the Garsonians.
Using the tubers brought back by the second expedition for the initial crop, it required several years of growing before a sufficient supply of seed podars were harvested to justify commercial growing.
But finally that had come about and the first limited supply of the wonder drug had been processed and put on sale with wide advertising fanfare and an accompanying high price.
And all seemed well, indeed. Once again the farmers of the Earth had gained a new cash crop from an alien planet. Finally Man had the tranquillizer which he’d sought for years.
But as the years went by, some of the enthusiasm dimmed. For the drug made from the podars appeared to lose its potency. Either it had not been as good as first believed or there was some factor lacking in its cultivation on Earth.
The laboratories worked feverishly on the problem. The podars were planted in experimental plots on other planets in the hope that the soil or air or general characteristics there might supply the needed element – if missing element it were.
And Central Trading, in its ponderous, bureaucratic fashion, began preliminary plans for importation of the tubers, remembering belatedly, perhaps, the trade agreement signed many years before. But the plans were not pushed too rapidly, for any day, it was believed, the answer might be found that would save the crop for Earth.
But when the answer came, it ruled out Earth entirely; it ruled out, in fact, every place but the podar’s native planet. For, the laboratories found, the continued potency of the drug relied to a large extent upon the chemical reaction of a protozoan which the podar plants nourished in their roots. And the protozoan flourished, apparently, on Garson IV alone.
So finally, after more than fifteen years, the third expedition had started out for Garson IV. And had landed and brought the cargo down and now was ready, in the morning, to start trading for the podars.
Sheridan flipped idly through the sheets from the portfolio. There was, he thought, actually no need to look at all the data once again. He knew it all by heart.
The canvas rustled and Hezekiah stepped into the tent. Sheridan looked up. “Good,” he said, “you’re back. Did you get Max fixed up?”
“We found a body, sir, that proved acceptable.”
Sheridan pushed the pile of reports aside. “Hezekiah, what are your impressions?”
“Of the planet, sir?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, it’s those barns, sir. You saw them, sir, when we were coming down. I believe I mentioned them to you.”
Sheridan nodded. “The second expedition taught the natives how to build them. To store the podars in.”
“All of them painted red,” the robot said. “Just like the barns we have on Christmas cards.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“They look a little weird, sir.”
Sheridan laughed. “Weird or not, those barns will be the making of us. They must be crammed with podars. For fifteen years, the natives have been piling up their podars, more than likely wondering when we’d come to trade…”
“There were all those tiny villages,” Hezekiah said, “and those big red barns in the village square. It looked, if you will pardon the observation, sir, like a combination of New England and Lower Slobbovia.”
“Well, not quite Lower Slobbovia. Our Garsonian friends are not as bad as that. They may be somewhat shiftless and considerably scatterbrained, but they keep their villages neat and their houses spic and span.”
He pulled a photograph from a pile of data records. “Here, take a look at this.”
The photograph showed a village street, neat and orderly and quiet, with its rows of well-kept houses huddled underneath the shade trees. There were rows of gay flowers running along the roadway and there were people – little, happy, gnomelike people – walking in the road.
Hezekiah picked it up. “I will admit, sir, that they look fairly happy. Although, perhaps, not very smart.”
Sheridan got to his feet. “I think I’ll go out and check around and see how things are going.”
“Everything is all right, sir,” said Hezekiah. “The boys have the wreckage cleared up. I’m sorry to have to tell you, sir, that not much of the cargo could be saved.”
“From the looks of it, I’m surprised we could salvage any of it.”
“Don’t stay out too long,” Hezekiah warned him. “You’ll need a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day and you’ll be out at the crack of dawn.”
“I’ll be right back,” Sheridan promised and ducked out of the tent.
Batteries of camp lights had been erected and now held back the blackness of the night. The sound of hammering came from the chewed-up area where the floater had come down. There was no sign of the floater now and a gang of spacehand robots were busily going about the building of another radio shack. Another gang was erecting a pavilion tent above the conference table, where Abraham and his fellow roboticists still worked on Lemuel and Maximilian. And in front of the cook shack, Napoleon and Gideon were squatted down, busily shooting craps.