Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 8 - The Statue Of Dr. Kang (VII)

Yig came back to Dr. Kang's outdoor 'workshop' with Keely in tow.

"What was it you needed?" she asked.

"I need more workers," said Kang. "I'm stretched too thin here."

"Everyone we can spare is already working for you," explained Keely. "What are you doing that requires so many people?"

Dr. Kang looked at her like she was a particularly stupid child who had just said something adorable.

"I need to smelt enough ore to build a lathe, so I can build a drill press, so that I can build a better lathe, so that I can build a better furnace so that I can smelt iron of decent enough quality to make an even better lathe. Only then can I manufacture useful enough tools to even get you started on your uplift. Started, mind you."

"I'm sorry, but we can only spare so much. Men need to work the fields so the village can eat."

"I'll take a look at your farming techniques when I have a free second. There are probably many inefficiencies that could free up more laborers."

"You know about farming too?" interrupted Yig.

"For all intents and purposes I know everything," said Dr. Kang. "You lack the knowledge base to even conceive the questions that I don't know the answers to."

"People can't work if they don't eat," said Keely.

"Once I get my metal shop up and running I can produce turnploughs. I will cut your agricultural labor needs down to a tenth of what they are. But in the short term I need more hands."

Keely made a helpless gesture.

"Alright then, Keely, I have a job for you. I want you to take a census of the village."

"I don't know what that word means," said Keely.

"Gather up as many white, grey and brown stones as you can find and one of those baskets I've seen around. Go around to each family, and add a white stone to the basket for every child, a grey one for every woman, and a brown one for every man. Do this for the entire village then bring the basket to me."

"Why?" asked Keely.

"Once we have an accurate count of the citizenry we can look at organizational structure. I'm going to boil every inefficiency out of your way of life and bank the resulting surplus labor."

"I wish you would speak more simply," said Keely. "You are hard to follow."

"You don't need to understand anything besides my instructions," said Dr. Kang. "Find the stones, complete the census, and waste no more of my time. I have a workshop to build and little enough help building it as it is."

"As you say," said Keely, giving Dr. Kang a suspicious look.

She left to do as she was told.

Dr. Kang turned to Yig.

"That charcoal isn't going to move itself," he said.

* * *

"I gave him a direct order. He specifically told me he was disregarding it," said Mitzner, over the comms.

Captain Littlecrow put her face in her palm while she sat in the command throne.

"This doesn't make any sense," said the Captain. "He's been on dozens of primitive worlds. He's never cared about their standard of living before. He always had so much contempt for the Uplift Division."

"Well there was the statue..." came the voice of Wagner.

"Statue?" asked the Captain.

"There was a statute in the village that maybe resembled Dr. Kang slightly, if you squint," said Mitzner.

The Captain sighed.

"Then it turned out there was some kind of prophecy related to person depicted in the statute, and now Kang has them all convinced he's their chosen one," Mitzner continued.

"I could have guessed it was an ego thing, but it's good to know the specifics," said the Captain.

"So what are my orders?" asked Mitzner. "I say we take the shuttle back to the village, force Dr. Kang on at gunpoint, and court marshal him."

"I don't think that will be necessary," said the Captain. "Take the shuttle back to the village and let him know you're leaving. He's not going to want to spend the rest of his life on a sub-K0.1 world."

"But if he resists I can force him back at gunpoint, right?" asked Mitzner.

"No guns," insisted Littlecrow.

"Fine," said Mitzner. "Take the fun out of everything."