Part 30 (1/2)
Her tone was low and tender and unsteady. He hugged her close.
Soon, he was aboard a GO-rocket, shooting up to Phobos to join the a.s.sembling rescue team. He wondered if this was the beginning of the end...
VIII
Frank Nelsen missed the first shambles at Pallastown, of course, since even at high speed, the rescue unit with which he came did not arrive until days after the catastrophe.
There had been hardly any warning, since the first attack had sprung from the sub-levels of the city itself.
A huge tank of liquid oxygen, and another tank of inflammable synthetic hydrocarbons to be used in the manufacture of plastics, had been simultaneously ruptured by charges of explosive, together with the heavy, safety part.i.tion between them. The resulting blast and fountain of fire had jolted even the millions of tons of Pallas' ma.s.s several miles from its usual orbit.
The sack of the town had begun at once, from within, even before chunks of asteroid material, man-accelerated and--aimed, had begun to splatter blossoms of incandescence into the confusion of deflating domes and dying inhabitants. Other vandal bands had soon landed from s.p.a.ce.
The first hours of trying to regain any sort of order, during the a.s.sault and after it was finally beaten off, must have been heroic effort almost beyond conception. Local disaster units, helped by hoppers and citizens, had done their best. Then many had turned to pursuit and revenge.
After Nelsen's arrival, his memory of the interval of acute emergency could have been broken down into a series of pictures, in which he was often active.
First, the wreckage, which he helped to pick up, like any of the others.
Pallastown had been like froth on a stone, a castle on a floating, golden crag. It had been a flimsy, hastily-built mushroom city, with a beautiful, tawdry splendor that had seemed out of place, a target s.h.i.+ning for thousands of miles.
Haw, haw...! Nelsen could almost hear the coa.r.s.e laughter of the Jolly Lads, as they broke it up, robbed it, raped it--because they both sneered at its effeteness, and missed what it represented to them...
Nelsen remembered very well how a man's att.i.tudes could be warped while he struggled for mere survival in an Archer drifting in s.p.a.ce.
Yet even as he worked with the others, to put up temporary domes and to gather the bloated dead, the hatred arose in him, and was strengthened by the fury and grief in the grim, strong faces around him. To exist where it was, Pallastown could not be as soft as it seemed. And to the hoppers--the rugged, level-headed ones who deserved the name--it had meant much, though they had visited it for only a few days of fun, now and then.
The Jolly Lads had been routed. Some must have fled chuckling and cursing almost sheepishly, like infants the magnitude of whose mischief has surpa.s.sed their intention, and has awed and frightened them, at last. They had been followed, even before the various late-coming s.p.a.ce forces could get into action.
Nelsen overheard words that helped complete the pictures:
”I'll get them... They had my wife...”
”This was planned--you know where...”
It was planned, all right. But if Ceres, the Tovie colony, had actually been the instigator, there was evidence that the scheme had gotten out of hand. The excitement of destruction had spread. Stories came back that Ceres had been attacked, too.
”I killed a man, Frank--with this pre-Asteroidal knife. He was after Helen and my son...”
This was timid David Lester talking, awed at himself, proud, but curiously ashamed. This made another picture. By luck the Lesters lived in the small above-the-surface portion of Pallastown that had not been seriously damaged.
Frank Nelsen also killed, during a trip to Post One of the KRNH Enterprises, to get more stellene and other materials to expand the temporary encampments for the survivors. He killed two fleeing men coldly and at a distance, because they did not answer his hail. The shreds of their bodies and the loot they had been carrying were scattered to drift in the vacuum, adding another picture of retribution to thousands like it.
Belt Parnay was the name of the leader whom everybody really wanted to get. Belt Parnay--another Fessler, another Fanshaw. That was a curious thing. There was another name and face; but as far as could be told, the personality was very similar. It was as if, out of the darker side of human nature, a kind of reincarnation would always take place.
They didn't get Parnay. Inevitably, considering the enormity of s.p.a.ce, many of the despoilers of Pallastown escaped. The shrewdest, the most experienced, the most willing to shout and lead and let others do the dangerous work, had the advantage. For they also knew how to run and hide and be prudently quiet. Parnay was one of these.
Some captives were recovered. Others were found, murdered. Fortunately, Pallastown was still largely a man's city. But pursuit and revenge still went on...
Post One was intact. Art Kuzak had surrounded it with a cordon of tough and angry asteroid-hoppers. It was the same with the other posts, except Five and Nine, which were wiped out.
”Back at last, eh, Nelsen?” Art roared angrily, as soon as Frank had entered his office.