Spacepaw by Gordon R. Dickson Page B

together, or four movable pulleys. This was the fixed block and had abrake and lock as well as a heavy wooden hook welded to the top of it. The other unit was the movable block which contained three pulleys. The two units, combined with the rope, together should give Bill a block-and-tackle with a lifting power of seven times whatever pull he could put upon the fall rope. Flat Fingers, being a little bigger than most Dilbians, outweighed Bill by—Bill calculated—about five to one. In other words, the village blacksmith could probably lift about his own body weight of nine hundred pounds. However, the block-and-tackle Bill had constructed gave him a seven-times advantage. Therefore, if he could put upon the rope he would be holding a pull equal to his own human body weight of a hundred and sixty-five pounds, he should be able to lift well over a half-ton. Bill looked at what he had constructed, feeling satisfied.
    He looked at his wristwatch. The hands, recalibrated to Dilbian time, stood at about half an hour short of noon. He was reminded, suddenly, that he had had no breakfast, and no evening meal the day before except for the Dilbian fare he had choked down in Outlaw Valley. He remembered seeing a well-stocked kitchen in his earlier exploration of the Residency. He turned away from the block-and-tackle, leaving it where it was on the workbench, and opened the doorway to the hallway leading back to the living quarters of the building. The hallway was dim, but as he stepped into it he thought he saw a flicker of movement from behind the door as it opened before him.
    But that was all he saw. For a second later a smashing blow on the back of his head sent him tumbling down and away into spark-shot darkness.
    When he opened his eyes again, it was at first with the confused impression that he was still asleep in his bed at the Residency. Then he became conscious of a headache that gradually increased in intensity until it seemed to fit his head like a skullcap, and, following this, he was made aware of a sickly taste in his nose and mouth, as if he had been inhaling some sort of anesthetic gas.
    Cautiously he opened his eyes. He found himself seated in a small woodland clearing, by the banks of a stream about fifteen or twenty feet wide. The dell was completely walled about by underbrush, beyond which could be seen the trunks and the trees of the forest.
    He blinked. For before him, seated crosslegged like an enormous Buddha on the ground with his robe spread around him, was Mula- ay . Seeing himself recognized, the Hemnoid produced one of his rich, gurgling chuckles.
    “Welcome back to the land of the living, ah—Pick-and-Shovel,” said Mula- ay cheerfully. “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come to.”
    “What do you mean, knocking me on the head and bringing me here—” Bill was beginning, when the thunder of his own voice and the working of his own jaw muscles so jarred his skullcap of headache pain that he was forced to stop.
    “I?” replied Mula- ay , in a tone of mild, if unctuous surprise, folding his hands comfortably upon his cloth-swathed belly. “How can you suspect me of such a thing? I give you my word I was simply out for a stroll through these woods, and noticed you tied up here.”
    “Tied up—?” began Bill, too jolted by the words to pay attention to the stab of pain that the effort of speaking sent through his skull, from back to front. He became aware that his hands were pulled around behind him, and a moment’s experimentation revealed that his wrists were tied together on the opposite side of the narrow tree trunk that was serving him for a backrest.
    “You can’t get away with this sort of thing!” he stormed at Mula- ay . “You know no Dilbian would do something like this. You’re breaking the Human-Hemnoid treaty on Dilbia. Your own superiors will have your hide for this!”
    “Come now, my young friend,” chuckled Mula- ay . “As I say—my superiors are