America 2040 - Golden World Part 21

He sat up, pushed back his rumpled hair, looking very young and vulnerable. "It hurt me, Mandy," he said, because the thought of being without her was not pleasant. Because he needed to know that at least one person on the d.a.m.ned planet was on Rocky Miller's side. "I'm not in love with-the girl I'm-"

"I don't want to know who she is," Mandy said quickly.

"You want to try to patch things up?"

"That's the idea," she said.

"I'm going to take part of the colony south sooner or later," he said, watching her closely for her reaction.

"That can be called mutiny," she warned him.

He flopped onto his back. "So you're going to side with him against me."

"Right is right, Rocky. I'm not siding with anyoneagainst you. Will you promise me that you won't do anything precipitous? That you'll let the matter be settled in a democratic way?"

"He'll never call for free elections," Rocky said. "You know that."

"He'll call for elections when the time is right, when there is no chance of being surprised by some unknown danger."

"Which will be never. Look"-he sat back up again- "you'll have to make a choice. I'm willing to forget-"

"Oh, thank you very much."

He frowned. "If you're going to be a smart-a.s.s-"

"All right, let's both forget."

"You'll either be with me or against me," he said.

"I won't be a part of a mutiny."

"You must think I'm d.a.m.ned stupid," he said. "I have the support of a lot of people."

"If you want to be a politician, wait until the elections. Will you do that?"

"I'm not going to do anything dumb." "All right."

"When the time comes, you'll have to make a choice, Mandy. You'll have to go with me or stay here alone."

"No discussion allowed? I won't have a vote?"

"Ever since we got married we've lived whereyour work demanded that we live. Our schedule has always been built aroundyour work. I think it's about time I had a choice."

There was truth in what he said. "I reserve the right to discuss any plans that affect both of us, " she said, "but, in general, I agree that you should have a choice. I would hope that you'd listen to and weigh my opinion."

"Haven't I always?" He sat up, swung himself around to face her, and took both her hands in his. "I've never stopped loving you, Mandy. I just have to know one thing: When the time comes and if I choose to move to the south, will you go with me?"

"Yes," she said, for she felt that most of the colonists were good, solid-minded people who would respect Rodrick s leadership and the ship's const.i.tution. At worst, she would have months, perhaps years to try to change Rocky's mind about going his own way.

"Want to come back to bed?" she asked, rising. His arms closed around her, hands seeking out the thinness of her gown under her robe.

"Good idea," he said.

He made love to her with a vigor that a.s.sured her partic.i.p.ation, and it was only when it was over and he was sleeping that she wondered if he'd pleasured his lover equally as well only a couple of hours earlier.

She pushed that thought out of her mind. She had made her decision. She had loved Rocky and still felt a certain fondness for him and excitement when they were making love. She was no teenager, no young, star-struck lover. She was strong minded enough to overcome her infatuation with Duncan. To a.s.sure that, she would take one final, conclusive step at the first opportunity.

The opportunity came the very next day. Rodrick came into her lab at midmorning, drew himself a cup of coffee, and said, "I was just talking with Jacob West. He got some impressive recordings of animal sounds during the night and wants permission to go down to the jungle floor and take a quick look around. I wish there were some way to get Mopro down there, but he'd be handicapped in the undergrowth. "

"I think the admiral's armaments can handle most anything that comes along," she said.

"Did you see the film of those water things?"

"First thing this morning," she answered. "Big, aren't they?"

"Big." He smiled at her appreciatively.

"Explosive bullets killed the miners," she said. "Yes." He leaned his hip against the side of a workta-ble. "I told Jacob to go ahead, but to take no chances."

She was going to miss these easy chats. She knew she had become Duncan's one confidant. Strong, private man that he was, he would never discuss his decisions and his reasoning with anyone else. But there was nothing for her to do but plunge ahead.

"Duncan, Rocky was using the ship's night eyes the night we went outside."

His coffee cup froze on the way toward his lips.

"Mandy, I'm so sorry."

It was just the right response, the perfect reaction. She felt her eyes mist. Infatuation? h.e.l.l, she was so much in love with the man that her entire being cried out to him.

"It wasn't your fault," she said stiffly. She smiled. "Or, at best, it was as much my fault as yours."

"That explains his change of att.i.tude," Rodrick said glumly, for he, too, was feeling guilt. A good commanding officer never, never coveted the wife of a junior.

Mandy had the urge to tell him that Rocky's att.i.tude toward him had started going bad before then, but she was silent.

Rodrick was thinking how badly he was going to miss these moments, innocent on the surface, not so innocent in his heart, for he made excuses to drop into her lab, found it delightfully easy to talk with her, felt that she understood his need to talk things over with her, if for nothing more than to have a pair of sympathetic ears, a sounding board.

"I have never loved a woman as much as I love you," Rodrick said, and his tone told her that his statement was the end of something, not a beginning. "If you want to leave him, G.o.d help me, I'll accept you with joy and with open arms, and worry about the consequences later."

"No," she said, putting her hand on his arm and withdrawing it quickly, for just being near him ate away at her resolution. "We can't do that. There's already a split, factions forming."

"Divorce him. Be my wife." Even as his heart formed the words, his mind was seeing the possible damage that could be done to the colony and the chances of completing his mission, but if she had said yes, he would have risked it all.

"Oh, Dunc, you know we can't."

"I know that you love me."

"Yes. I won't deny it. But we can't, and you know it as well as I know it. Don't you?"

Something inside her wanted him to protest, to argue, to be so forceful that she could not resist.

But in his mind's eye he was seeing President Dexter Hamilton's face, hearing the last, stirring words of Hamilton's speech just before theSpirit of America 's rockets blasted to lift her huge bulk into s.p.a.ce.

Duncan knew his own weaknesses, and that meant that their relationship would have to stop completely.Just being near her would tempt him.

"I will say just one thing more," he said, not able to look at her lest he seize her and squeeze honor and duty out of both of them and carry her to his quarters yelling, to h.e.l.l with all of it. "I'll try not to think of you, but I will be thinking of you. I will want to be with you, to just talk with you, but I won't be with you."

"I understand," she replied, her throat tight and hurting.

"Oh, d.a.m.n it all," he said, his voice husky as he spilled the remainder of his coffee putting the cup down so that he'd have two arms to reach for her, to draw her close, one hand going up to cup her face as he tried to put a lifetime of loving into one kiss.

She saw the tears forming in his eyes just before he turned away and rushed from the room, and she ran after him, but the door closed in her face. She locked it, then doubled over, her arms clasped to her stomach as if she were in pain, and let the agony of loss pour out of her in shuddering, wrenching sobs.

Rodrick was on his way to induce weeping in still another woman. Jackie was on morning duty. Rodrick sent a junior officer to relieve her and waited for her in his quarters. She came in, straight and tall and beautiful in her uniform, and, standing almost at attention, said, "You wanted to see me, Captain?"

"Sit down, Jackie. Coffee?"

"I'm floating now," she said. "You know communications duty, nothing to do but listen and talk and drink coffee."

"Jackie," he said, as she settled into a chair, knees together, long, nice legs in a ladylike, crossed ankles position, "I won't blame you a bit if you tell me to go to h.e.l.l."

"Why, Captain," she said, startled, "a good officer would never be so insubordinate."

"I've had a lot of things on my mind, Jackie. To be open and frank with you, I decided that I wasn't setting a very good example." He grinned uncomfortably. Jackie's smile was frozen on her face. "You know, we've got to get that old bear down in the engine room married before he blows all his fuses, "

Rodrick said.

"What?" she asked, thrown off by his change of direction.

"Max and Grace. They've taken out papers." He rose, walked to her, placed three sheets of paper on her knees. "Good old service red tape. A marriage license in triplicate. Papers like these," he said, smiling down at her puzzled expression. "This may not be a very romantic proposal, Jackie, but I've signed, and if you'd like to put your signature just below mine, it would please me very much. If not, I'll understand."

She looked down quickly, saw the familiar scrawl of his signature, was stunned, looked up into his smiling face thinking,Oh, you son of a b.i.t.c.h, why couldn't you have done this two months ago ?

"I thought, if you didn't object," he said softly, "that we'd make it a double wedding."

Yes, yes, all of her said. "A very businesslike proposal, Captain Rodrick," she said, but her smile was warm. "Worthy of the service. In the same businesslike spirit, I accept." She pulled out her pen, put thepapers on the side table, and signed all three with a flourish.

"Thank you, my dear," Rodrick said. "I will do my best to see that you never regret it."

Just two months earlier, and there would have been no regret, no guilt, only happiness. She stood. He did not move back. Her face was close to his. He put his hands on each side of her face. "Lieutenant Jackie Garvey, you are a very beautiful woman," he murmured. He could not bring himself to speak of love, but he could speak the truth, and when her eyes suddenly filled with tears, he kissed her, lowered his arms, and drew her slim, tall body to him.

"I'll just go enter these legal papers into the log," he said. "We'll have dinner in my quarters tonight with Grace and Max and see if we can work out the details together, okay?"

"Yes, sir, " she said, with a salute and a crooked little smile that left him slightly puzzled as she wheeled and almost ran from the room. She ran directly to her own quarters, not far away in officer country, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself across the bed to let the tears come, trying to seek out the happiness she knew she should have felt, knowing only that she'd listened to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Rocky, had bedded him, enjoyed it thoroughly, and all the time Duncan had been just biding his time, putting duty first. "b.i.t.c.h, b.i.t.c.h, b.i.t.c.h," she said, through sobs, beating her pillow with both fists.

SEVENTEEN.

Jacob West had positioned Renato's scout ship,Apache Two , according to directions given by the admiral, so that the ship's powerful winch cable would run freely down through the cut-out in the mesh of the jungle-canopy landing pad. The admiral was lowered first, standing with one foot in the big hook on the end of the cable, holding onto the cable with just one hand. Once on the jungle floor, he looked around and waved, and Jacob brought the hook back up, stepped onto it, and nodded to Renato. It was a long and thrilling ride down.

The cable with its hook was hanging just above the ground, ready to lift them up out of danger. In the event that the source of the big life signals showed up and had teeth, Jacob, with his soft and fragile human flesh, would be drawn up first while the admiral stood rear guard.

Both of the dauntless explorers were equipped with a laser weapon with an oversized power pack and a preset shallow beam. Jacob led, effortlessly slashing his way with the laser through the undergrowth. He had a camera-pack helmet mounted on his head, and now and then, as he noted some new jungle plant, he'd pause, point with his nose, and trigger the camera. He was headed in the direction of a tree that was as tall as the others but a bit more slender, with ladderlike limbs growing out at right angles from the trunk and fruit the size of a large grapefruit. Amando would always be interested in some new kind of fruit.

They reached the fruit tree quickly. The fruit smelled delicious, but Jacob wasn't going to sample it until it was cleared for human consumption by Amando.

"We'll get a couple of samples on the way back," he told the admiral.

They found a lot of life under the canopy. The birds were noisy, plentiful, brilliantly colored, and almost like those on Earth. Once Jacob and the admiral caught a glimpse of an animal high up in the foliage butcould not see it well enough to know what it looked like. Three types of trees, with huge boles, predominated. Now and then there'd be an oddball tree, which bore either fruit or nuts. Jacob cut their pathway so they might conveniently gather samples of the potential food items on the way back.

It was hot, steamy work. They extended the path for a few hundred yards and saw nothing new, so Jacob stopped to rest and think things over. Hunting the source of the life signals wasn't going to be simple. He'd seen no trails, no clearings, no breaks in the dense undergrowth.

"Let's make a circle," he suggested, moving aside so that the admiral could cut the trail for a while.

Thus it was that the admiral was in the lead when he cut into a clearing. He halted, listening, then stepped out, shifting his laser to his left hand and drawing his weapon with his right. Jacob had his own projectile weapon in hand. The clearing was roughly circular. The undergrowth, matted and dead, had been pushed into a circle and piled up in the center to a height of about six feet.

The admiral started to walk; Jacob, alert, head jerking back and forth, followed.

"What do you think?" Jacob whispered.

"I don't think the underbrush cut itself and piled itself up," the admiral answered.

"Some kind of nest?"

"Big nest," the admiral said.

Jacob was a scientist, not an outdoorsman. Apache or not, he'd spent his life in well-heated or cooled houses, laboratories, or ships of the s.p.a.ce Service. He'd grown up in a new, high-rise factory-residential city in the New Mexico desert where the only green things were in irrigated gardens.

The brush pile was about twelve feet in diameter. They walked around it. There was nothing like an opening.

"Shall I cut into it?" the admiral asked.

"Why not?"

The laser cut away inches of dry brush at a sweep, the material disintegrating so swiftly that it did not ignite the pile. The cut was about two feet deep when Jacob said, "Hold it."

There was something inside the pile. He heard a chorus of piping squeaks.

"Perhaps we should desist," the admiral suggested.

The pile of brush was big enough to hide something quite large, with teeth.