Part 12 (1/2)

The scout was driving at top speed directly toward the surface of the planet, the hull beginning to glow red from atmospheric friction.

Ivan panicked. Instead of firing retro-rockets, he tried to slow the s.h.i.+p's deadly velocity by extending the wings; as they popped into position, he realized his mistake. The relatively fragile wings peeled, metal surfaces flaking back and off. Within seconds the surface of the wings glowed red, then white hot. and their disintegrating pieces clanged and slashed at the hull of the scout as, finally, Ivan began to use the rockets.

The sharp bite of the harness caused Theresita to cry out as she was thrown forward. Then she blacked out.

TEN.

Life was getting incredibly complex for Duncan Rodrick. The Omega colony was, of course, technically still a part of the United States, and its citizens subject to United States laws. It had been known from the beginning, however, that never in history would a colony be so effectively cut off from its mother country.President Dexter Hamilton, a student of history, had decided that theSpirit of America would leave Earth carrying her own const.i.tution, which was based closely on the Const.i.tution of the United States but with provisions for total self-government once the colony had been securely established. In the beginning, though, the captain was to be in sole command until the settlement and building phases were completed.

It was a big job for one person. It was impossible for Rodrick to be expert in all fields, and yet he had to make decisions concerning the work and actions of scientists in every discipline.

Rodrick's primary concern was for the safety of the colony. His ban on field expeditions had created some tension, for all the colonists had been eager to get on with the job and satisfy their curiosity about the immense planet.

After the rea.s.suring visit to Grace Monroe's lab during which they discussed the miners' probable intelligence, Rodrick went directly to the bridge, punched up an all-s.h.i.+p, all-colony circuit on the communicator, and ended the ban for all units. The scout s.h.i.+ps and scientific teams began to leave the s.h.i.+p and the town immediately.

But Rodrick still felt vaguely uneasy. He looked at the holographic projection of the planet's globe.

There was just so d.a.m.ned much of it; the eight major land ma.s.ses, of which the continent Columbia was by far the largest, represented four times the land area of Earth, and it had taken centuries for modern man to explore the remote corners of Earth. Furthermore, everything was bigger, taller, or longer on Omega. Even with the aid of the swift scouts and high-tech instruments, it would be a long time before all the hidden secrets of Omega were revealed.

It was difficult for everyone to adjust his or her frame of reference to comprehend the land areas involved. Mandy, whose staff biologists, zoologists, and entomologists were overwhelmed with work cla.s.sifying, naming, and studying specimens of animal, plant, and insect life, had to envision Earth distance in comparison even to begin to appreciate the size of their new world: On Earth, the largest land ma.s.s was the Eurasian continent. The longest straight line that could be drawn across that land ma.s.s, roughly from the Rock of Gibraltar to Vladivostok, measured just under eight thousand miles. A line drawn from the point where the equator crossed the western coast of Columbia to the permanent ice cap of the northeastern corner of the continent was over twenty-two thousand miles. From coast to coast at the lat.i.tude of Hamilton, the distance was just over ten thousand miles. The smallest continent in the eastern hemisphere, a land ma.s.s nestled in the sea bounded by Columbia's east coast and the other two giant continents of the eastern hemisphere, was the size of South America.

Meanwhile, Omega was slowly giving them hints of her totally alien nature-in the matter of the miners, for example, and the enigma of the dead city. Then there were the seas of Omega, vast watery distances, with depths in proportion to the size of the planet. The onsh.o.r.e waters had begun to give up specimens of sea life to the marine scientists. One husband-wife team, without asking permission, had sat down to a candlelight dinner of fresh fish. The fact that exhaustive laboratory tests had shown that several marine varieties were safe for human consumption didn't lessen Rodrick's concern. The long-range effects of eating alien foods of any kind was just one more worry for Rodrick, but there was nothing to be done about that except wait for something to happen months or years down the road.

The s.h.i.+p's supply bunkers still contained huge quant.i.ties of food because everything was recycled-but no one wanted to go on eating recycled food forever. Mandy Miller was concerned that foods grown on Omega would be lacking in the trace elements-zinc and iron, for example-that were needed for the Americans' health. Before the s.h.i.+p's own supply of vitamins and minerals ran out, the scientists would have to find a way to obtain them from Omega, either in natural food items, such as the marine life, or in concentrated form. To manufacture food supplements meant the building of manufacturing plants. Andthe raw material had to exist.

Two days after the work teams were back in the field, the oil drillers. .h.i.t a large pool at shallow depths.

A paper-thin pipeline was rolled out from the s.h.i.+p to the wellhead, and soon the huge building machines, with their own internal factories, were turning out building blocks at a pleasing rate.

The automated building machines were interesting to watch. The software for their computers included a variety of designs, which had been made back on Earth to meet any imaginable conditions in which humans could survive. The home designs for the climate of Eden were open, s.p.a.cious, and sprawling, and the town was being quickly transformed.

A prefabricated hydrogen reclamation plant was rapidly taking shape on the sh.o.r.e of Stanton Bay, for one of the first needs would be to manufacture fuel to keep the scout s.h.i.+ps in the air. Without them, planetary exploration would come to an end, and the colony would be without air and ground transport since hydrogen was the fuel for the crawlers, too.

The colonists had been warned that there would be a return to basics during the early years of settlement. The multiplicity of items that an American could buy, even in the twenty-first century, the century of shortages, would be missing from the colony's early output. The s.h.i.+p's data system held the chemical formulas for hundreds of thousands of different products, and someday those items and more might be made and sold on the new planet.

The drugs and medicines that increased life expectancy were high on the list of priorities. Most drugs could be synthesized by the labs aboard the s.h.i.+p, and factories would be built in Hamilton to manufacture drugs as soon as possible.

It was all Duncan Rodrick's responsibility, with the help of his advisers and the various committees, to choose the proper path and then run like h.e.l.l. If life-style suffered in some respects, that was only a temporary condition, but comfort and health had to,be maintained in order to keep everyone working at maximum efficiency.

The life of each person aboard was precious, but if there had been nuclear war on Earth, each life was doubly precious. If war had killed all humans or created a race of mutants, then the Americans might be the only h.o.m.o sapiens in the universe. Also, the colony would need all its human resources to prevent a relapse into pre-industrial living standards.

Amando Kwait's semirobotic machines turned sod for the first time in the verdant river valley. Seeds germinated, and it became an evening pastime for people to walk along the banks of the Dinah River and Jumper's Run to comment on the green shoots of wheat, corn, barley, and rye. All the good vegetables of Earth began to grow as if Omega's soil pleased them. Anyone who cared to could stake off a garden plot, requisition seeds from Amando's storehouse, and have his own garden. Flowers began to sprout in beds around the homes. Exploration teams brought back exquisite flowering plants for transplant.

Life began to settle into a routine of work and play. Fish became a part of the diet, and Amando Kwait sampled fruit brought back from the tropical areas of the continent and found it to be delicious. It had been decided to begin to breed a small herd of cattle for milk, b.u.t.ter, and meat, so embryos were being formed in the nutrient fluids of the artificial wombs in the Life Sciences sections.

The zoologists on Mandy Miller's Life Sciences staff had been agitating for permission to mount expeditions into the tropical areas to investigate the huge life signals that were picked up by scout s.h.i.+ps.

Rodrick asked them to hold off for a while. The intimidating job of surveying and investigating their ownhuge continent came first.

Animal life was not nearly so varied as on Earth. In general, there were three types of animal life: gra.s.s eaters of a half-dozen species; three types of predators, all catlike; and a family grouping of small gra.s.s- and insect-eating rodentlike creatures, the largest species of which was the size of a rabbit. But what the animal world of Omega lacked in variety, the plants and insects overcompensated.

The first child born on Omega came during the time when everyone was concerned with the threat of the miners, and the event pa.s.sed almost unnoticed. Then there was another and another. A twin boy and girl were named in memory of Pat Renfro and Dinah Purdy. Jack Purdy was asked to be G.o.dfather.

Somehow, the birth of children gave a sense of permanency to the colony. People who, when referring to home, meant Earth, began to say, ”back on Earth,” and when a field party finished work and turned the crawlers toward Hamilton, they were headed home.

Clive Baxter, the nattily dressed, diminutive chemist, found Rodrick the next morning in the vehicle park.

Rodrick had arisen early to walk down to the bay before sunrise, and the activity in the vehicle park had drawn him to watch the field teams preparing to venture out for the day's work. It was a beautiful summer morning with Omega's sun going to work early. It would be hot, but experience had told them that by early afternoon a cooling breeze would begin to come from the sea.

”Good morning,” Baxter said, and before Rodrick could answer, ”you're a hard man to find, Captain.”

Rodrick didn't answer that.

”Ah, Captain, there's to be a meeting this evening in the meeting room in Section Two. We'd all be pleased if you could attend.”

Rodrick had taken a quick look at his calendar for the day, and he had no meeting scheduled for the evening. ”What sort of meeting?” he asked.

”Just a few concerned citizens,” Baxter said. ”I feel that it's important that you be there.”

”What are the citizens concerned about?”

Baxter looked away. A crawler pa.s.sed, engine humming, treads lifting dust to settle on Baxter's perfectly s.h.i.+ned shoes. ”I'd rather not say at the moment,” he said. ”It's not my place to speak for the committee. I'm only one member.”

”Well, Dr. Baxter, I have nothing scheduled for the evening. I can stop by.”

”Thank you,” Baxter said. ”Eight o'clock, then. ”

The scouts began to hit the air in scattered flocks, the entire complement going out, and Rodrick wished that he were up there with them. He wondered again what Baxter's concerned citizens were concerned about, but there was a busy day ahead of him: Allen Jones, the underwater architect, was beginning a survey of the ocean just offsh.o.r.e, using swift, maneuverable underwater craft, which had been most valuable in building underwater cities on Earth. That was going to be very interesting. And scout s.h.i.+p pilots forApache One andApache Two , Jacob West and Renato Cruz, were going to make slow treetop-level flights over the southern jungles near the equator in an effort to find a break in the densecanopy of the jungle for a clue to the strong life signals that were thickly scattered in Columbia's tropics.

Since the miners were no longer fiercely defending their burrows, Stoner McRae, Paul Warden, and the admiral used the camera-carrying pipeline crawlers to explore as many tunnels as possible. Stoner would review the film at night, running it through at fast speed, his eyes peeled for indications of metallic deposits in the stone of the tunnel walls.

Jackie Garvey had drawn the midnight-to-dawn watch. She was finis.h.i.+ng her log when her relief, Ito Zuki, came in with a cheerful morning greeting and a craving for coffee. She chatted with Ito for a few minutes and then, yawning, left the bridge, wanting nothing more than a shower and sleep. She lingered in the shower for a self-indulgent period, then turned the water jet to cold, danced in the chill stream, and hopped out refreshed to wrap herself in a huge towel. She turned on the entertainment channel, found soothing music, finished drying her legs, left the damp towel on the carpet, and fell across the bed. She had just closed her eyes when her door bong signaled a visitor.

”Go away,” she said softly.

But the call bonged again, insistently, and with a frown she reached for her robe and padded barefoot to the door.

”Hi,” Rocky Miller said, smiling. ”I hope I caught you before you fell asleep.”

”Just barely,” Jackie answered.

Rocky produced a thermal container from behind his back. ”Hot chocolate, fresh. It'll help you sleep.”

”Thank you, but-”