Part 26 (1/2)

After some discussion, the roll-call vote got under way and Rocky realized quickly that he was going to be defeated.

”Hold it right there!” he shouted, leaping to his feet.

”You are interfering with a democratic vote,” Baxter said.

”To h.e.l.l with your democratic vote,” Rocky said. ”It's quite clear that your democratic vote is going toleave us all under Duncan Rodrick's thumb. You're all voting to postpone a definite decision because you think, or hope, that theSpirit of America is going to lift off and go back to Earth for another load of colonists, or that Harry Shaw has another stars.h.i.+p almost ready and that it will show up here within the next few years. Let me disillusion you. First, this planet will never yield enough rhenium to lift the s.h.i.+p.

Paul Warden and his crew are feeding synthetic fat to every miner they can find in exchange for the low-grade copper ore, which contains minute amounts of rhenium, and I mean minute. They've gathered exactly two hundred and forty grains of rhenium to date. That's half an ounce. And as for another s.h.i.+p coming, there won't be one.”

Rocky paused. He was on the verge of betraying every oath he had ever taken.

”How do you know that there will not be another s.h.i.+p?” Baxter asked.

Well, Rocky was thinking,under Earth and Service laws, I've already committed treason and mutiny .

But there was no more Earth law. It had gone up in the nuclear war that had followed the naval war off South America as surely as night follows day.

He took a deep breath. ”I know that there will be no s.h.i.+p, not in the next few years, not in millions of years, because I know something you don't know, something that Rodrick has kept from all but a few people because he doesn't trust anyone but himself to know the meaning of duty and honor. I have been sworn to secrecy, and that's bothered me, because I feel that everyone has the right to know that war broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union while we were firing our rockets to leave Earth orbit. ”

There was a stunned silence.

”I'm sorry,” Rocky said. ”I know that you're shocked, and I hate to break the news to you so brutally.

Rodrick wouldn't put it on the viewscreens outside the bridge, but the United States destroyed the Russian fleet off the west coast of South America. ”

”The bombs...” someone began fearfully.

”In all honesty, we did not see the bombs begin to fall. When the hidden explosive went off in the communications-room area, we lost all contact with Earth. But I have no doubt that they did fall. The Russian fleet was being destroyed, and without the fleet, South America would have been lost to them.

Do you have any doubt that they used their bombs?”

There was a sound of weeping. Everyone sat with downcast eyes.

”Do you want to continue to live under the military dictators.h.i.+p, at the whim of a man who would keep such news from you because he's determined to waste the energies and resources of this colony simply to carry out his orders to take theSpirit of America back to an Earth where there will be no one left alive?”

”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, no!” a man shouted. ”I move that we strike the results of our balloting so far and start over.”

When the vote had been taken, a satisfied Rocky Miller rose once again. ”It's not going to be easy,” he said. ”We're going to have to work together. We're going to have to keep quiet that I told you about the war on Earth, because if Rodrick finds out that anyone other than his little elite knows, he'll know that we are planning something. We must prepare in the greatest secrecy. One by one the crawlers must bemoved, the two plastic machines edged toward the south, and all the things we're taking loaded onto cargo carriers and trailers. We must be out of Hamilton, out of the immediate area, and headed south before the alarm is given. Are there any questions?”

There were, many of them. But before the meeting ended, the a.s.signments were made and each of the dissidents was firm in the conviction that now, more than ever, they had a right to choose their own dwelling places on the planet that would be their home for the rest of their lives. Knowing Earth's sad fate made it even more necessary, in their minds, to exercise freedom of will and freedom of choice.

Time was short. Many of them went to their quarters and began to pack, to plan, and also to weep a bit, in some cases, for friends and relatives left behind on Earth, now dead.

It was important, they all felt, to break away from the tyranny of the s.h.i.+p's captain quickly and permanently. Theirs, they felt, was the true spirit of America. They were going to establish independence and freedom, just as President Dexter Hamilton had said that the colony would. They were all good Americans, all exceptional in their own fields, and each was secure in his or her own self-esteem. But because they were Americans, each felt that he or she knew better how to establish true freedom than any other person alive. In that respect, transporting a representative group of Americans over eleven light years into s.p.a.ce and then telling them that they were the last Earth people alive hadn't changed the American att.i.tude one iota.

NINETEEN.

Max Rosen was ready a full two hours ahead of the start of the scheduled wedding festivities. He spent those two hours standing up, drinking coffee, and snarling at the well-meaning jokes of other officers and his engineering crew. He stood up because he was well aware of his extraordinary talent for wrinkling unwrinklable service material, and he wanted to avoid walking to the altar looking as if he had slept in his uniform.

”Nervous!” he yelled. ”Why the h.e.l.l should I be nervous?” He spilled a cup of coffee, narrowly missing soiling his white uniform, to prove how calm he was.

As Max opened drawers and slammed them, looking for something to mop up the mess, Stoner McRae winked at Paul Warden and said, ”We'll do it, Max. You just take it easy.”

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Eden's late summer days were becoming a bit shorter, the nights a bit cooler. Rains had been recorded not more than two hundred miles to the north, and the weather scientists predicted that Hamilton would see its first rain with the beginning of the rainy season in a matter of weeks.

If the entire colony was putting on its finest. Field teams had been bringing back representative samples of Eden's spectacular flowers for days, and Amando Kwait had been keeping the flowers fresh with infusions of some magical formula, which prevented wilt for weeks. The streets were decorated with the flowers and with native plants, which the colonists had been gradually planting. The Unified Meeting House, glowing, gleaming white plastic in a design by the Earth's finest architect, was bustling with people making last-minute additions to the ma.s.ses of flowers there. It was not just a double wedding that had put the colony into a festival mood: Amando Kwait's fields were still producing a large variety of good things to eat. The veld around Hamilton had bloomed with a crop of low-growing but very delicious berries. Fish was now a staple on all tables, with Allen Jones reporting glowingly that the western ocean teemed with edible varieties. In spare time- and there was some for the very energetic, due to Omega's long days-two sportfis.h.i.+ng boats were being constructed in a shed by the beach. There were now three new real natives of Eden, three more babies having been born, a little girl and a set of male twins.

Only Rocky Miller's group of dissidents failed to see that things were just about as optimum as possible, that Hamilton had been built on what was probably the most beautiful site on the continent, and that just about everything was right in this new world.

But on that Sunday, even the minority led by Rocky and Clive felt a genuine excitement. It had been relatively simple to move equipment they would be taking into positions where departure would be swift and unnoticed, with all the colony crowded into the meeting house.

The only people who seemed to be worried were the two brides-to-be, although the worry was not a major one. It was just that the flower girl and ring bearer had not returned from their fis.h.i.+ng trip into the Renfro Mountains with the admiral. Betsy McRae was helping Grace and Jackie get ready, as was Evangeline Burr-the McRae house was being used as a dressing room because it was near the meeting house. The two wedding gowns were spread out carefully on the beds in Betsy's and Cindy's bedrooms.

”The admiral will have Cindy and Clay back in plenty of time,” Betsy told Grace. ”Stoner talked to them early this morning, and they were well under way. ”

The admiral had discovered that he was quite a singer. He had not spent too much time with music, but as Clay and Cindy blended their young voices, he a.n.a.lyzed the songs they sang, tried his own wave-generating voice box, and found that he could modulate his voice quite nicely and sing anything from tenor to ba.s.s. It came as no surprise to any of them. They belted out some nice rounds based on a children's song about an eency-weency spider. Jumper howled accompaniment when they hit high notes.

The sun was warm, the breeze cooling, as the crawler sped southward in the Renfro foothills. They were taking the most direct route home, and once they were out of the foothills and could bring the crawler up to full speed, they'd be in Hamilton well before eleven o'clock, giving Clay and Cindy a full hour to get ready. They both knew their roles in the wedding, thanks to a very thorough rehearsal on the night before they joined the admiral in the mountains.

Shortly after dawn, Clay had called control and been patched through to Stoner to report on their progress. Clay was at the controls of the crawler. He was a good driver-Stoner had seen to that. Clay was a responsible boy, not the sort who would endanger himself, his pa.s.sengers, or valuable equipment through thoughtlessness or recklessness. The admiral was navigating.

The crawler sped down the valley beside a hundred-foot-wide river, which formed a lake just ahead of them in the broad, open end of the valley. Beyond the lake, down the gorge formed by the river, the rolling slopes of the veld began and flattened quickly, giving them a sixty-mile-per-hour driving speed to cover the last hundred and fifty miles into Hamilton. The lake, which blocked their southward progress, was long and narrow, spreading across the valley to a length of about three miles. Between the crawler and the exit gorge was less than a half mile of deep water. ”Hey, Admiral,” Clay said, ”we'd save maybe a half hour if we go straight across. What do you say?”

It took only a microsecond for the admiral to evaluate the choice. The crawler was amphibious. By activating hydrojets, it would move across the half mile of lake at a speed of thirty miles per hour.

”The sea is my element,” the admiral said. Clay didn't slow the crawler. It sped across the gra.s.sy verge of the lake and sent sheets of water splas.h.i.+ng as it hit shallow water. The treads dug, and its forward speed took it to a point where it was afloat. Clay hit the hydrojets, and the speed was maintained.

They were less than two hundred feet from the far sh.o.r.e of the lake when a shadow pa.s.sed over them swiftly, and Clay jerked his head up to see a winged figure, quite large, zoom past and bank off to the left, heading for the sh.o.r.e. Something hit the water within five feet of the crawler's side, and a second later the lake erupted around them, the water blinding Clay for a moment. There was a hollow explosion, and Clay's feet went numb as the floorboard of the crawler leaped up. A jet of water came directly up between his feet.

In those frenzied few seconds before the crawler sank swiftly, leaving them treading water, the admiral saw that a stream of large-winged things, quite manlike except for the huge, spreading wings, were arrowing down toward them from above the western ridge. He a.s.sured himself Cindy and Clay were all right-they were stunned, and their ears rang with the force of the explosion, but were treading water, and Clay was holding a laser rifle clear of the water with one hand. Jumper had already started swimming for sh.o.r.e. Cat had climbed swiftly onto the admiral's shoulder.

”Get to sh.o.r.e, quickly,” the admiral commanded. Clay and Cindy swam the short distance, Clay keeping his weapon dry. The admiral ran up onto the rocky sh.o.r.e and pointed toward an outcrop of rock.

Jumper was barking excitedly. The winged figures were closing in swiftly, flying in a disciplined line. Clay raised his laser rifle and fired once, twice, three times, and fire lanced up to send two of the flyers tumbling limply into the lake. The others veered away after releasing a barrage of spears, which fell just short as Clay seized Cindy's hand and ran for the cover of the rocks. The admiral's laser pistol functioned, even though wet, but the flyers were quickly out of range.

The flying squad, about twenty strong, landed on the pebbly beach two hundred yards away, and quickly shed their wings, now giving the appearance of thin, almost sticklike humanoid shapes.

”Admiral,” Clay said, ”I think we've just met the people who built the dead city.” He remembered the one representation of a flying man, the limbs mere straight lines, and other pictures from the city.

”Cindy,” the admiral said, ”I want you to crawl up under this overhanging rock and stay there. Take Jumper with you.”

The admiral was blaming himself. He had not been alert. He'd let peaceful Omega lull him. He had been as surprised as any of them by the sudden attack. Now he had no communications. The crawler was sunk in deep water, and he hadn't even been careful enough to carry a communicator with him. He was not yet overly concerned for the safety of the humans in his care, but Clay and Cindy would miss the wedding, and the first contact with the intelligent race of Omega had, through no choice of his own, begun with violence.

The admiral knew his adversaries had explosives. That meant that any approaching flyer had to be shot out of the air before he got near enough to drop anything near them; the laser rifle that Clay had been alert enough to salvage would take care of that. His own laser and projectile weapon would handle those on the ground. He could see that a few of them had long spears, and others were unslinging bows fromtheir shoulders.