Outside the hall, a small army awaited events. Ponyets was effectively isolated from his ship; he lacked any weapon, but his attempted bribe; and Gorov was still a hostage.

  He made the final adjustments on the clumsy monstrosity that had cost him a week of ingenuity, and prayed once again that the lead-lined quartz would stand the strain.

  “What is it?” asked the Grand Master.

  “This,” said Ponyets, stepping back, “is a small device I have constructed myself.”

  “That is obvious, but it is not the information I want. Is it one of the black-magic abominations of your world?”

  “It is nuclear in nature, admitted Ponyets, gravely, “but none of you need touch it, or have anything to do with it. It is for myself alone, and if it contains abominations, I take the foulness of it upon myself.”

  The Grand Master had raised his iron cane at the machine in a threatening gesture and his lips moved rapidly and silently in a purifying invocation. The thin-faced councilor at his right leaned towards him and his straggled red mustache approached the Grand Master’s ear. The ancient Askonian petulantly shrugged himself free.

  “And what is the connection of your instrument of evil and the gold that may save your countryman’s life?”

  “With this machine,” began Ponyets, as his hand dropped softly onto the central chamber and caressed its hard, round flanks, “I can turn the iron you discard into gold of the finest quality. It is the only device known to man that will take iron – the ugly iron, your Veneration, that props up the chair you sit in and the walls of this building – and change it to shining, heavy, yellow gold.”

  Ponyets felt himself botching it. His usual sales talk was smooth, facile and plausible; but this limped like a shot-up space wagon. But it was the content, not the form, that interested the Grand Master.

  “So? Transmutation? Men have been fools who have claimed the ability. They have paid for their prying sacrilege.”

  “Had they succeeded?”

  “No.” The Grand Master seemed coldly amused. “Success at producing gold would have been a crime that carried its own antidote. It is the attempt plus the failure that is fatal. Here, what can you do with my staff?” He pounded the floor with it.

  “Your Veneration will excuse me. My device is a small model, prepared by myself, and your staff is too long.”

  The Grand Master’s small shining eye wandered and stopped, “Randel, your buckles. Come, man, they shall be replaced double if need be.”

  The buckles passed down the line, hand to hand. The Grand Master weighed them thoughtfully.

  “Here,” he said, and threw them to the floor.

  Ponyets picked them up. He tugged hard before the cylinder opened, and his eyes blinked and squinted with effort as he centered the buckles carefully on the anode screen. Later, it would be easier but there must be no failures the first time.

  The homemade transmuter crackled malevolently for ten minutes while the odor of ozone became faintly present. The Askonians backed away, muttering, and again Pherl whispered urgently into his ruler’s ear. The Grand Master’s expression was stony. He did not budge.

  And the buckles were gold.

  Ponyets held them out to the Grand Master with a murmured, “Your Veneration!” but the old man hesitated, then gestured them away. His stare lingered upon the transmuter.

  Ponyets said rapidly, “Gentlemen, this is pure gold. Gold through and through. You may subject it to every known physical and chemical test, if you wish to prove the point. It cannot be identified from naturally-occurring gold in any way. Any iron can be so treated. Rust will not interfere, not will a moderate amount of alloying metals–”

  But Ponyets spoke only to fill a vacuum. He let the buckles remain in his outstretched hand, and it was the gold that argued for him.

  The Grand Master stretched out a slow hand at last, and the thin-faced Pherl was roused to open speech. “Your Veneration, the gold is from a poisoned source.”

  And Ponyets countered, “A rose can grow from the mud, your Veneration. In your dealings with your neighbors, you buy material of all imaginable variety, without inquiring as to where they get it, whether from an orthodox machine blessed by your benign ancestors or from some space-spawned outrage. Come, I don’t offer the machine. I offer the gold.”

  “Your Veneration,” said Pherl, “you are not responsible for the sins of foreigners who work neither with your consent nor knowledge. But to accept this strange pseudo-gold made sinfully from iron in your presence and with your consent is an affront to the living spirits of our holy ancestors.”

  “Yet gold is gold,” said the Grand Master, doubtfully, “and is but an exchange for the heathen person of a convicted felon. Pherl, you are too critical.” But he withdrew his hand.

  Ponyets said, “You are wisdom, itself, your Veneration. Consider – to give up a heathen is to lose nothing for your ancestors, whereas with the gold you get in exchange you can ornament the shrines of their holy spirits. And surely, were gold evil in itself, if such, a thing could be, the evil would depart of necessity once the metal were put to such pious use.”

  “Now by the bones of my grandfather,” said the Grand Master with surprising vehemence. His lips separated in a shrill laugh, “Pherl, what do you say of this young man? The statement is valid. It is as valid as the words of my ancestors.”

  Pherl said gloomily, “So it would seem. Grant that the validity does not turn out to be a device of the Malignant Spirit.”

  “I’ll make it even better,” said Ponyets, suddenly. “Hold the gold in hostage. Place it on the altars of your ancestors as an offering and hold me for thirty days. If at the end of that time, there is no evidence of displeasure – if no disasters occur – surely, it would be proof that the offering was accepted. What more can be offered?”

  And when the Grand Master rose to his feet to search out disapproval, not a man in the council failed to signal his agreement. Even Pherl chewed the ragged end of his mustache and nodded curtly.

  Ponyets smiled and meditated on the uses of a religious education.

  5.

  ANOTHER WEEK RUBBED away before the meeting with Pherl was arranged. Ponyets felt the tension, but he was used to the feeling of physical helplessness now. He had left city limits under guard. He was in Pherl’s suburban villa under guard. There was nothing to do but accept it without even looking over his shoulder.

  Pherl was taller and younger outside the circle of Elders. In nonformal costume, he seemed no Elder at all.

  He said abruptly, “You’re a peculiar man.” His close-set eyes seemed to quiver. “You’ve done nothing this last week, and particularly these last two hours, but imply that I need gold. It seems useless labor, for who does not? Why not advance one step?”

  “It is not simply gold,” said Ponyets, discreetly. “Not simply gold. Not merely a coin or two. It is rather all that lies behind gold.”

  “Now what can lie behind gold?” prodded Pherl, with a down-curved smile. “Certainly this is not the preliminary of another clumsy demonstration.”

  “Clumsy?” Ponyets frowned slightly.

  “Oh, definitely.” Pherl folded his hands and nudged them gently with his chin. “I don’t criticize you. The clumsiness was on purpose, I am sure. I might have warned his Veneration of that, had I been certain of the motive. Now had I been you, I would have produced the gold upon my ship, and offered it alone. The show you offered us and the antagonism you aroused would have been dispensed with.”

  “True,” Ponyets admitted, “but since I was myself, I accepted the antagonism for the sake of attracting your attention.”

  “Is that it? Simply that?” Pherl made no effort to hide his contemptuous amusement. “And I imagine you suggested the thirty-day purification period that you might assure yourself time to turn the attraction into something a bit more substantial. But what if the gold turns out to be impure?”

  Ponyets allowed himself a dark humor in return, “When the judgement of that impurity depends upon those who are most interested in finding it pure?”

  Pherl lifted his eyes and stared narrowly at the trader. He seemed at once surprised and satisfied.

  “A sensible point. Now tell me why you wished to attract me.”

  “This I will do. In the short time I have been here, I have observed useful facts that concern you and interest me. For instance, you are young-very young for a member of the council, and even of a relatively young family.”

  “You criticize my family?”

  “Not at all. Your ancestors are great and holy; all will admit that. But there are those that say you are not a member of one of the Five Tribes.”

  Pherl leaned back, “With all respect to those involved,” and he did not hide his venom, “the Five Tribes have impoverished loins and thin blood. Not fifty members of the Tribes are alive.”

  “Yet there are those who say the nation would not be willing to see any man outside the Tribes as Grand Master. And so young and newly-advanced a favorite of the Grand Master is bound to make powerful enemies among the great ones of the State – it is said. His Veneration is aging and his protection will not last past his death, when it is an enemy of yours who will undoubtedly be the one to interpret the words of his Spirit.”

  Pherl scowled, “For a foreigner you hear much. Such ears are made for cropping.”

  “That may be decided later.”

  “Let me anticipate.” Pherl stirred impatiently in his seat. “You’re going to offer me wealth and power in terms of those evil little machines you carry in your ship. Well?”

  “Suppose it so. What would be your objection? Simply your standard of good and evil?”

  Pherl shook his head. “Not at all. Look, my Outlander, your opinion of us in your heathen agnosticism is what it is – but I am not the entire slave of our mythology, though I may appear so. I am an educated man, sir, and, I hope, an enlightened one. The full depth of our religious customs, in the ritualistic rather than the ethical sense, is for the masses.”

  “Your objection, then?” pressed Ponyets, gently.

  “Just that. The masses. I might be willing to deal with you, but your little machines must be used to be useful. How might riches come to me, if I had to use – what is it you sell?– well, a razor, for instance, only in the strictest, trembling secrecy. Even if my chin were more simply and more cleanly shaven, how would I become rich? And how would I avoid death by gas chamber or mob frightfulness if I were ever once caught using it?”

  Ponyets shrugged, “You are correct. I might point out that the remedy would be to educate your own people into the use of nucleics for their convenience and your own substantial profit. It would be a gigantic piece of work; I don’t deny it; but the returns would be still more gigantic. Still that is your concern, and, at the moment, not mine at all. For I offer neither razor, knife, nor mechanical garbage disposer.”

  “What do you offer?”

  “Gold itself. Directly. You may have the machine I demonstrated last week.”

  And now Pherl stiffened and the skin on his forehead moved jerkily. “The transmuter?”

  “Exactly. Your supply of gold will equal your supply of iron. That, I imagine, is sufficient for all needs. Sufficient for the Grand Mastership itself, despite youth and enemies. And it is safe.”

  “In what way?”

  “In that secrecy is the essence of its use; that same secrecy you described as the only safety with regard to nucleics. You may bury the transmuter in the deepest dungeon of the strongest fortress on your furthest estate, and it will still bring you instant wealth. It is the gold you buy, not the machine, and that gold bears no trace of its manufacture, for it cannot be told from the natural creation.”

  “And who is to operate the machine?”

  “Yourself. Five minutes teaching is all you will require. I’ll set it up for you wherever you wish.”

  “And in return?”

  “Well,” Ponyets grew cautious. “I ask a price and a handsome one. It is my living. Let us say,– for it its a valuable machine – the equivalent of a cubic foot of gold in wrought iron.”

  Pherl laughed, and Ponyets grew red. “I point out, sir,” he added, stiffly, “that you can get your price back in two hours.”

  “True, and in one hour, you might be gone, and my machine might suddenly turn out to be useless. I’ll need a guarantee.”

  “You have my word.”

  “A very good one,” Pherl bowed sardonically, “but your presence would be an even better assurance. I’ll give you my word to pay you one week after delivery in working order.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Impossible? When you’ve already incurred the death penalty very handily by even offering to sell me anything. The only alternative is my word that you’ll get the gas chamber tomorrow otherwise.”

  Ponyet’s face was expressionless, but his eyes might have flickered. He said, “It is an unfair advantage. You will at least put your promise in writing?”

  “And also become liable for execution? No, sir!” Pherl smiled a broad satisfaction. “No, sir! Only one of us is a fool.”

  The trader said in a small voice, “It is agreed, then.”

  6.

  GOROV WAS RELEASED on the thirtieth day, and five hundred pounds of the yellowest gold took his place. And with him was released the quarantined and untouched abomination that was his ship.

  Then, as on the journey into the Askonian system, so on the journey out, the cylinder of sleek little ships ushered them on their way.

  Ponyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov’s ship while Gorov’s voice pierced through to him, clear and thin on the tight, distortion-bounded ether-beam.

  He was saying, “But it isn’t what’s wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won’t do. Where did you get one, anyway?”

  “I didn’t,” Ponyets answer was patient. “I juiced it up out of a food irradiation chamber. It isn’t any good, really. The power consumption is prohibitive on any large scale or the Foundation would use transmutation instead of chasing all over the Galaxy for heavy metals. It’s one of the standard tricks every trader uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold one before. But it’s impressive, and it works – very temporarily.”

  “All right. But that particular trick is no good.”

  “It got you out of a nasty spot.”

  “That is very far from the point. Especially since I’ve got to go back, once we shake our solicitous escort.”

  “Why?”

  “You yourself explained it to this politician of yours,” Gorov’s voice was on edge. “Your entire sales-point rested on the fact that the transmuter was a means to an end, but of no value in itself–, that he was buying the gold, not the machine. It was good psychology, since it worked, but–”

  “But?” Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely.

  The voice from the receiver grew shriller, “But we want to sell them a machine of value in itself, something they would want to use openly; something that would tend to force them out in favor of nuclear techniques as a matter of self-interest.”

  “I understand all that,” said Ponyets, gently. “You once explained it. But look at what follows from my sale, will you? As long as that transmuter lasts, Pherl will coin gold; and it will last long enough to buy him the next election. The present Grand Master won’t last long.”

  “You count on gratitude?” asked Gorov, coldly.

  “No – on intelligent self-interest. The transmuter gets him an election; other mechanisms–”

  “No! No! Your premise is twisted. It’s not the transmuter, he’ll credit – it’ll be the good, old-fashioned gold. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Ponyets grinned and shifted into a more comfortable position. All right. He’d baited the poor fellow sufficiently. Gorov was beginning to sound wild.

  The trader said, “Not so fast, Gorov. I haven’t finished. There are other gadgets already involved.”

  There was a short silence. Then, Gorov’s voice sounded cautiously, “What other gadgets?”

  Ponyets gestured automatically and uselessly, “You see that escort?”

  “I do,” said Gorov shortly. “Tell me about those gadgets.”

  “I will, –if you’ll listen. That’s Pherl’s private navy escorting us; a special honor to him from the Grand Master. He managed to squeeze that out.”

  “So?”

  “And where do you think he’s taking us? To his mining estates on the outskirts of Askone, that’s where. Listen!” Ponyets was suddenly fiery, “I told you I was in this to make money, not to save worlds. All right. I sold that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber and that doesn’t count towards the quota.”

  “Get back to the mining estates, Ponyets. Where do they come in?”

  “With the profits. We’re stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last cubic foot this old scow can scrape up, and then some more for yours. I’m going down with Pherl to collect, old man, and you’re going to cover me from upstairs with every gun you’ve got – just in case Pherl isn’t as sporting about the matter as he lets on to be. That tin’s my profit.”

  “For the transmuter?”

  “For my entire cargo of nucleics. At double price, plus a bonus.” He shrugged, almost apologetically. “I admit I gouged him, but I’ve got to make quota, don’t I?”

  Gorov was evidently lost. He said, weakly, “Do you mind explaining’?”

  “What’s there to explain? It’s obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought he had me in a foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to the Grand Master. He took the transmuter. That was a capital crime in Askone. But at any time he could say that he had lured me on into a trap with the purest of patriotic motives, and denounce me as a seller of forbidden things.”