Free The Makeshift Rocket by Poul Anderson

McConnell threw a boot at him. Herr Syrup closed the door and toddled out to make another requisition on the cargo.
    Having done so, he stopped by the saloon. Emily was there, her face in her arms, her body slumped over the table and shuddering with sobs. At the far end sat Sarmishkidu, puffing his Tyrolean pipe and making calculations.
    ‘Oh, dear,’ said Herr Syrup again, helplessly.
    ‘Can you console her?’ asked Sarmishkidu, rolling an eyein his direction. ‘I have endeavored to do so, and am sorry to report absolute failure.’
    Herr Syrup took a strengthening pull from his bottle.
    ‘You see,’ explained the Martian, ‘her noise distracts me.’
    He fumed smoke for a dour moment. ‘I should at least think,’ he whined, ‘that having dragged me here, away from my livelihood and all the small comforts which mean so much to a poor lonely exile among aliens like myself – sustaining, heartening consolations which already I find myself in sore need of – namely a table of elliptic integrals – having so ruthlessly forced me into the trackless depths of outer space, and apparently not even to any good purpose, she would have the consideration not to sit there and weep at me.’
    ‘Dere, dere,’ said Herr Syrup, patting the girl’s shoulder.
    ‘Uhhhhh,’said Emily.
    ‘Dere, dere, dere,’ continued Herr Syrup.
    The girl raised streaming eyes and sobbed pathetically: ‘Oh, go to hell.’
    ‘Vat happened vit’ you and de mayor?’
    A bit startled, Emily sniffed out: ‘Why, nothing, unless you mean that time last year when he asked me to preside at the Ladies’ Potato Race, during the harvest festi—Oh I The Major!’ She returned her face to her arm. ‘Uhhhh-hoo-hoo-hoo!’
    ‘I gather she tried to seduce him and failed,’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘Naturally, her professional pride is injured.’
    Emily leaped to her feet. ‘What do you mean, professional?’ she screeched.
    ‘Warum
, nothing,’ stammered Sarmishkidu, retreating into a different character. ‘I just meant your female prides. All women are females by profession,
nicht war?
That is ajoke. Ha, ha,’ he added, to make certain he would be understood.
    ‘And I
didn’t
try to – to – Oh!’ Emily stormed out of the saloon. A string of firecracker Greek trailed after her.
    ‘Vat is she saying?’ gaped Herr Syrup.
    Herr von Himmelschmidt turned pale. ‘Please don’t to ask,’ he said. ‘I did not know she was familiar with that edition of Aristophanes.’
    ‘
Helledusse!’
said the engineer moodily. ‘Ve ban hashed now.’
    ‘Hmmm,’ muttered Sarmishkidu. ‘It is correct that the enemy is armed and we are not. Nevertheless, it is an observational datum that there are three of us and only one of him, and so if we could separate him from his weapons, even briefly, and—’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Oh. Well, nothing, I suppose.’ Sarmishkidu brooded. ‘True,’ he said at last, ‘one of him would still be equivalent to four or five of us.’ He pounded the table with an indignant hand. Since the hand, being boneless, merely flopped when it struck, this was not very dramatic. ‘It is most unfair of him,’ he squeaked. ‘Ganging up on us like that.’
    Herr Syrup stiffened with thought.
    ‘
Unlautere Wettbewerb
,’ amplified the Martian.
    ‘Do you know—’ whispered the Dane.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I hate to do dis. It does not seem right. I know it is not right. But by Yoe, maybe he ban asleep now!’
    The idea dawned on Sarmishkidu. ‘Well, I’ll be an unelegandy proven lemma,’ he breathed. ‘So he doubtless is.’
    ‘And for veapons, in de machine shop is all de tools. Like wrenches, hammers, vire cable—’
    ‘Blowtorches,’ added Sarmishkidu eagerly. ‘Hacksaws, sulfuric acid—’
    ‘No, hoy, vait dere! Just a minute! I don’t vant to hurt him. Yust a little bonk on de head to make him sleep sounder, vile ve tie him up, dat’s all.’ Herr Syrup leaped erect. ‘Let’s go!’
    ‘Good luck,’ said Sarmishkidu,