America 2040 - Golden World Part 2

They had both been Kolchak supporters-she his most trusted military adviser and lover, Novikov a young protege. They had suffered a mutual loss with Yuri's death.

"I'm afraid I'm a bit behind on the news," she said.

"Comrade," Novikov said, "you will be pleased to know that the glorious Red Army took only thirty-six hours to demolish the defenses of the capitalist stooges in West Germany and France." He smiled. "But I would guess that comes as no surprise, Marshal, since you probably had a hand in the plans for such an operation."

Indeed, she had helped to formulate the plans for a swift thrust of armored columns in a three-p.r.o.nged attack designed to slice West Germany and France into three isolated pockets of resistance. Yet she felt no satisfaction; in fact, she lost what little appet.i.te she had. Were the fools so determined to have the nuclear war that had been Yuri's last wish?

She nodded to the captain. Her plan had depended on reaching the channel ports in thirty-six hours. So it had worked.

"Is it over, then?" she asked.

"The few remaining French units surrendered this morning," Novikov said. "The Red Star flies, at last, over all of Europe."

"What was the reaction of the Americans?" Theresita asked.

A young officer laughed. "The Americans? What can they do?"

Captain Novikov smiled indulgently. He was a young, vital man, Theresita was thinking, no more than forty-five. He had the same strong face, the same coa.r.s.e, black hair and strong nose that had made Yuri such a handsome man.

"I don't think the Americans will contest the outcome," Novikov said. "After all, the old alliances between western Europe and the Anglo-Americans were discarded long ago. And, after all, the Americans have had their little victory in South America."

Theresita was saddened. That "little victory" had cost the Soviet Union its entire Pacific Fleet and the lives of hundreds of thousands of men. "I have only one regret about being aboard ship," another young officer said. "I won't be there to see the airborne armies drop into England."

Theresita looked quickly toward Novikov, her face flushing in shock. "Surely they haven't-" She paused.Not England , she was thinking.Surely they would not be so stupid . The Americans might accept the envelopment of West Germany and France, but they would react to an invasion of England; the link between those two nations of English speakers was too ancient, too close. Even though Great Britain had become a tiny, helpless island-nation, there was a kinship between them and the Americans.

"No, not yet England," the captain said, shrugging. "Why bother?"

But Theresita knew the purpose: The invasion of the British Isles would be an exercise for the Red Army. The Royal Navy would be used to blood the Soviet navy, and it would be taken out relatively quickly through the use of submarines and missiles.

"To take England," she said, "would be to declare war openly on the United States. The Americans would be unable to use conventional means to prevent the invasion, so they would use nuclear weapons."

"England would not be worth the risk, " Novikov said.

"We'll move on j.a.pan next," said a young officer.

Theresita smiled. "The Americans are so closely linked with j.a.pan economically and industrially that they would fight. They have sufficient forces in the Far East."

"But they would be at the long end of a supply line, which could be easily broken," the young officer said. "This time we will be fighting inour backyard, as they were in South America. Then, too, they have problems of their own in their own hemisphere."

Theresita nodded.

"Brazil knows that the United States Navy was severely crippled by the South American war. The American victory was not without losses. Brazil is moving into the smaller South American nations, while making belligerent statements against the United States."

Theresita went back to her quarters thinking,Stupidity, stupidity . The old men in the Kremlin, smarting over the defeat in South America, had had their revenge in taking West Germany and France. Couldn't they now be satisfied? She turned on her viewscreen for the first time since coming aboard. On one channel was a recording of the latest newscast from Moscow. She saw the face of President Dexter Hamilton. She had met Hamilton, had talked with him face to face. When he had stated that the United States would continue to offer total and unqualified support to both Great Britain and j.a.pan, she believed him. He had not backed down from Yuri, even when he knew that Yuri was unbalanced and would push the nuclear b.u.t.ton.

Marshal Mikhail Simonov, the old man, followed Hamilton on the screen and promised that the Americans would be punished for "their treachery in South America. "

So, after all, the Kremlin had learned nothing from their close brush with the final disaster. They simply did not understand that the United States had been pushed into a position that allowed no further retreat.

The world was almost totally Red. Communist arms and communist promises had long since won allthose undeveloped nations, which, back in the twentieth century, had been called the Third World. Now, with Germany and France occupied, the Red Star flew over all the world except Australia, Sweden, Israel-Egypt, the British Isles, Canada, j.a.pan, and the United States. (And South Africa, of course, that nation of mad dogs, sitting behind their tank traps, with every ant.i.tank gun armed with a tactical nuclear warhead.) Black Africa would not be able to overrun the last white enclave on the continent without Soviet help, and the Soviet Union would not risk another exchange of nuclear weapons for as poor a prize as South Africa.

From the time Theresita had realized that Yuri Kolchak intended to use strategic nuclear weapons, she'd begun a study of the English-speaking peoples. She had been impressed by their deep love of freedom, which was reinforced by her own deep feelings for her homeland, Poland, which had been overrun by the Russians in the mid-twentieth century. She had come to realize that few Anglo-Americans subscribed to the notion that they would be better off Red than dead. She knew in her heart that President Hamilton had not been bluffing when he had stated that he'd use any weapon in Americas a.r.s.enal to avoid becoming a part of a worldwide Soviet.

As the days pa.s.sed and theKarl Marx moved slowly outward toward the fringe of the solar system, Theresita began to feel that she had accomplished nothing more than the purchase of a little time by killing Yuri. The viewscreen informed them of crisis after crisis, threat after threat. Perhaps, she began to think, the pessimists who said that man had always been and would always be a self-destructive, death-seeking creature were right.

Gradually, she was able to form mental scar tissue over the open wound, the festering trauma of what she had been forced to do. She allowed herself to become a part of the day-to-day routine of the ship.

At first the colonists were wary of her. They knew that she was a marshal of the Red Army and had once been the second most powerful person in the Soviet Union. However, as the days pa.s.sed and she made it a point to talk with more and more people, some of them seemed to be able to forget that the big, well-formed, attractive woman had once been at the very peak of the power pyramid.

Government had always been a corps of elitists with little regard for the ma.s.ses. The Revolution had been fought to change that, but for many, including the scientists aboard theKarl Marx , it seemed that nothing much had changed except the faces at the top. The people were considered to be too stupid to partic.i.p.ate in any important decision. Personal freedom and individual initiative still eluded those who desired them. There were individuals aboard theKarl Marx who felt secretly that one of the chief goals of the expedition should be to change the system that put all power and all decision-making in the hands of an elite.

Soon people began to find that Theresita Pulaski was a good listener. She showed no interest in becoming a part of the rigidly structured cadre who ran the ship. Committee leaders began to come to her for an impartial viewpoint on problems. She did not actively avoid the ship's officers, but she didn't seek them out, either. Captain Novikov was the only officer with whom she talked regularly, and that at his initiative. Their conversations tended to dwell on the glory days when Yuri was reorganizing the political and power structure of the Soviet Union, taking more and more of the power onto himself.

Those had indeed been exciting days. The younger, healthy Yuri had been a visionary. At the time it had seemed that anything was possible.

Novikov was a hard-core Kolchakist, proud of his mission to establish communism among the stars.

Theresita guarded her thoughts when she was with him. She did not tell him that the form of government being exported aboard theKarl Marx bore little resemblance to the ideal communism that had been dreamed of by the ship's namesake. When she ate in the officers' mess she sometimes felt as if she were back in the Kremlin's War Room, for she heard the same bellicose statements and the same hardcore disregard for the individual.

The ideology that had brought Earth to the brink of nuclear disaster was aboard theKarl Marx , complete, unalterable, waiting to be planted in the virgin soil of an alien planet. Since the officers and their political advisers held the power, she did not, at first, even consider mounting opposition to them.

People were slow to reveal to Theresita that she was not the only one on board who aspired to better life in their new home among the stars. For a long time the old habits held: If someone made a statement that even implied criticism of the government, he was given a cold, angry stare.

But then one day, while Theresita was watching the newscast in one of the colonists' lounges, a mild-mannered chemist said, "It seems that they will not be content until they can use their nuclear bombs." No one glared at her. No one got up to leave.

A young girl, not more than twelve, asked Theresita on another day, "Why does there always have to be war?"

"Hush," her mother said quickly.

"There doesn't have to be war," a physicist said. "Where we are going, there need never be war."

There were good, intelligent people aboard, Theresita found. The selection process had worked well.

The physicist was right. There need be no war among the stars. Where they were going, why should there not be a certain amount of personal choice and freedom in the building of the new society?

Only one thing stood between the exceptional people aboard, scientists all, and a more lenient, more pleasant way of life: the power structure. If the colonists established a society based on individual freedom, the political cadre would be out of work. What would the officers do? They would no longer hold important positions. They would fight to hold onto their power.

"Would you really like it to be different?" she asked the small group gathered before the viewscreen.

Many looked uncomfortable. One woman said, "Very much so."

Perhaps Theresita didn't make her decision at that very moment, but that moment was the beginning.

Could she make it different? Was it time for a historic change? Perhaps, she told herself, all the hard years of pain, hunger, and conflict since the Revolution of 1917 pointed toward one end, to give the people aboard theKarl Marx the background, knowledge, and desire to break with the past and build a truly ideal society on a new world.

When contemplating a way, one must know one's enemy. Theresita had two groups of adversaries: the officers and the Communist party advisers. She began to spend more time with the officers. She listened to their personal problems, from the most junior lieutenant up to the captain, for Novikov, too, found Theresita to be a good listener.

Although he was obligated to consider the opinions of the political advisers in certain matters pertaining to the running of the ship, Novikov was the man whose responsibility it was to make all final decisions.

He was a hard man, a cool man. He would be a worthy opponent. She considered ways to get him on her side. Novikov was much concerned about Russian pride. The American ship had gone into deep s.p.a.ce first.

He was determined that theKarl Marx would atone in achievement for the head start of the Americans.

"We have always taken the lead in s.p.a.ce," he told Theresita one evening over tall, cool drinks mixed with ship's vodka. "When we put the first artificial satellite into s.p.a.ce, we used mathematical calculations done by the s.p.a.ce prophet, Tsiolkovsky, in the 1880s. Not only did Tsiolkovsky antic.i.p.ate and solve almost all of the engineering difficulties of s.p.a.ceflight, he told us, before man had flown an airplane, that liquid fuels would put the first vehicles into s.p.a.ce."

"That's very impressive," Theresita said. However, being a Pole, she was not always ready to believe it when a Russian said that Russia was first. But after some research, she found that Novikov was right about Tsiolkovsky. Much impressed by one of the s.p.a.ce pioneer's statements she'd read, she had the engineering shop engrave it on bra.s.s and presented the plaque to the captain for hanging in his quarters.

EARTH IS THE CRADLE OF THE MIND, BUT ONE CANNOT LIVE IN A CRADLE.

FOREVER.

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

She had some hope that the captain, hard-core Kolchakist that he was, might see the double meaning of the quotation. If she could win the mind of Novikov, the others would not be difficult. If she could make the captain see the failures of the rigid, joyless system that had brought the world to the brink of extinction, the rest would be easy.

TheKarl Marx had been in s.p.a.ce for a matter of weeks before the Russian lightstep probes, which had been launched to find habitable planets for the ship's pa.s.sengers, flashed back into the range of their radios. Theresita had been invited to be on the bridge when the messages came. The tension was evident.

After all, theKarl Marx had left Earth without a definite destination, and the information sent back by the probes would have a tremendous effect on the lives of all those aboard.

There was obvious disappointment among those on the bridge when the first probe's information had been received and displayed on the screen. A cla.s.s G-star, much like Earth's sun, was all alone in s.p.a.ce.

"So much for the theories of the astronomers," Captain Novikov said.

"We'll have the results of the other probes in a few minutes," Theresita said.

"We needed more time," Novikov said. "We should have sent out a half-dozen probes, more. Unlike the Americans, we were not short of rhenium. "

She did not tell him that there had been no more time, that Yuri Kolchak had been near death, ready to begin the final war, and wanted theKarl Marx safely away before the bombs began to drop.

A message from the bridge told them that the information from the second probe had been received.

"There is a difficulty, Captain," the computer operator said. "Problems with the decoding. " The captain walked forward to lean over the computer operator.

"Sorry, sir," the operator said. "There has been a malfunction of the coding equipment on the probe. The data from the probe's sensors is lost."

"d.a.m.n," Novikov said. But there was one more probe. The signal from the last probe arrived within minutes of that of the second, was decoded, and once again the viewscreen was filled by the glare of a star, and once again that star was a lone star devoid of a planetary family.

"So now we are without a destination," Novikov said, wiping his brow. "Get me ground control."

The communications officer bent forward, but before he could touch his console a red light began to flash. He laughed. "They're thinking about us, too, sir. There is a call from ground control coming in."

"Put it on the screen," Novikov ordered, expecting to see the face of the chief ground controller. Instead he saw a printed message, which had to be decoded.

"Urgent. Urgent, " the message read when decoded. "Enact contingency plan D."

The message meant nothing to Theresita, but Novikov went stiff, and his neck reddened. He was motionless for long seconds. He cast one harried look toward Theresita.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

Novikov turned away. His voice, when he spoke, was lower than usual, seemed to lack the usual bright, harsh snap of command.

"Navigation," he said, "begin positioning and firing for return to Earth orbit. Engineering, stand by for course alteration and rocket firing."

"We're going back?" Theresita asked, stunned.

"Ship's communicator, when navigation is ready, alert all personnel to stand by for deceleration. " He smiled sadly at Theresita. "This is going to take some time. Marshal Pulaski. You might want to wait in your quarters."

She left the bridge feeling uneasy. The three probes had found them no planets, but theKarl Marx had plenty of fuel and could journey to survey dozens of stars and still have fuel for a return trip to Earth.

Theresita was to learn the truth soon enough. Novikov joined her in her quarters within minutes and went directly to her bar to pour himself a large, straight vodka. He drank deeply and then poured another vodka and drank again.

"There is more to this than simply being recalled because the probes didn't locate a planet," she ventured.

He wiped his mouth. "As you are aware, theKarl Marx is a well-armed ship. We have lasers, missiles, projectile weapons, nuclear warheads."

She felt suddenly ill. "Under contingency plan D, theKarl Marx is to a.s.sume a position that will give us a clear range of fire with all weapons at the American nuclear missile s.p.a.ce stations," Novikov said.

Theresita's sick feeling changed instantly to a cold fury. "What have the fools done? Have they invaded England or j.a.pan?"

"There is no word."

"And we are to abandon the future, leave all s.p.a.ce to the Americans, to die with those senile old men in the Kremlin?"

Novikov's eyebrows shot upward in surprise. "I did not hear that statement, Comrade Pulaski."

"So you are going to go back?"

"Of course. I have my orders."

FOUR.

Duncan Rodrick had purloined Jack Purdy's scout ship,Dinahmite , leaving the chief scout to act as communicator for the other scout ships, which were deployed over an area roughly the size of Australia on mapping and survey flights. Rodrick had wanted to get a look at the new country from the air. He'd been too busy during the landing of theSpirit of America even to look at anything but the landing site. He hadDinahmite hovering at one thousand feet over the bay near the landing site. The bay, he was thinking, would offer protected anchorage to water vessels to be built later.

Rodrick had intended to go up alone for just a few minutes, but as he prepared to take off, Clay Girard watched with such longing in his eyes that Rodrick had said, "Wanta come along, Clay?" And Clay had leaped at the opportunity, bringing Jumper along as a matter of course.

Below them it looked as if theSpirit of America were being ripped apart. Various cargo hatches were open, and a swarm of men and women, each with a prea.s.signed duty, were operating a variety of machines. The hull plates and girders of the ship had been removed in four places- the ship had been so designed-and already the tractors were pulling the inner sh.e.l.ls of the colonists' quarters through the gaping holes. The metal cubicles rolled easily; several were already in place. The new town to be formed had been carefully planned back on Earth. Each family knew where its first dwelling would be located from having studied the town layout.