Part 3 (1/2)

Since Dalon and Graver seemed to have the situation at the plant well in hand, Kane decided to make a tour of the outer provinces where the ores were being mined. An efficient plant would be worthless if it did not receive sufficient ore.

He spent four days on the inspection tour; much longer than he had expected to be gone but made necessary by the fact that the small Elusium mines were widely scattered in rugged, roadless areas and he had to walk most of the distance. The single helicopter on Sanctuary was being used to fly the ore out but it was operating on a schedule that caused him to miss it each time.

Each mine was being worked by full day-and-night crews; in fact, by more men than necessary. The reason for that, and for the way the men silently withheld their hostility, was made apparent in a bit of conversation between two miners that he overheard one day:

_”... So why all of us here when not this many are needed?”_

_”They say Father Brenn wanted to get all the men out of town, away from the cruiser, so there would be no trouble--and you know there would have been if we had stayed. He wants to get the cruiser on its way back to Vogar, they say, so we can get busy producing weapons to fight the Occupation force....”_

He returned on the fifth evening of the allotted seven days and stopped by Brenn's cottage before going on to the s.h.i.+p. The old man was working in his garden, his trembling hands trying to tie up a red-flowered vine.

Kane tied it for him and he said, ”Thank you, sir. Did you find the mining to be as I had said?”

”I found more than that. You know, don't you, that Y'Nor will return with the Occupation force a hundred days after leaving here?”

”Yes--I know that that is his intention.”

”I understand that you're going to try to build weapons while he's gone. Don't, if you think anything of your people, let them do it.

Nothing you could build in a hundred days would last a minute against a cruiser's disintegrators.”

”I know,” Brenn said. ”We are supposed to choose between b.l.o.o.d.y, hopeless resistance and eternal slavery, aren't we? But why should either fate befall a peaceful race?”

Kane asked the logical question: ”Why shouldn't it?”

”The laws of G.o.d have always been laws of justice and mercy. Not even the Vogarian State can change them.”

He thought of the way the State had changed the Lost Islands in one b.l.o.o.d.y, violent afternoon. Brenn, watching his face, said:

”You are skeptical and bitter, my son--but you will learn that a harmless old man can speak with wisdom.”

”No,” he said. ”There is neither justice nor mercy in the universe. I know from experience. A man can only choose between the lesser of two evils--and almost anything is less evil than Y'Nor when he's mad.”

He went to the plant the next morning. Inside, wherever he looked, he saw girls in shorts and halters. The place seemed to be alive with partially clad women. He went to the nearest bulletin board and read Brenn's edict of four days before:

_Since the excessively warm temperature of the plant causes much discomfort and thereby impairs the efficiency of all workers, and since maximum efficiency will be required to produce the fuel in the extremely short time permitted us, it is suggested that the cool sunsuits of the Beachville girls become the standard work uniform until further notice. These may be obtained for the asking in Department 5-A._

The next day's edict read:

_Some have hesitated to follow yesterday's edict through a sense of modesty. This is most commendable. However, the situation is very critical, our lives depend upon the highest degree of efficiency we can attain, and a hot, miserable worker is not efficient. Your bodies are G.o.d's handwork--do not be ashamed of them._

The edict for the next day read simply, warningly:

_THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY._

The Vogarian guards and inspectors, now in tropical uniforms, still looked out of place with their holstered weapons but their former cold arrogance was gone and the att.i.tude of the girls had changed from polite reserve to laughing, chattering friendliness.

He found Dalon in a far corner; cornered, literally, by the red-haired personnel supervisor who was spitting like a cat as she said: