Asteroid of Fear Part 5

"Don't call him Pun'kins, Neely!" somebody yelled. "It ain't polite to misp.r.o.nounce a name. It's Mr. Tomatoes. I just saw. Bet he's got a million of 'em, out there on the farm!"

The whole crowd in the bar broke into coa.r.s.e shouts and laughs and comments. "... We ain't good neighbors--neglecting our social duties.

Let's pay 'em a visit.... Pun'kins! What else you got besides tamadas?

Let's go on a picnic!... h.e.l.l with the Boss Man!... Yah-h-h--We need some diversion.... I'm not goin' on shift.... Come on, everybody!

There's gonna be a fight--a moider!... h.e.l.l with the Boss Man...."

Like the flicker of flame flashing through dry gunpowder, you could feel the excitement spread. Out of the bar. Out of the rec-dome. It would soon ignite the whole tense camp.

John Endlich's heart was in his mouth, as his mind pictured the part of all this that would affect him and his. A bunch of men gone wild, kicking over the traces, arcing around Vesta, sacking and destroying in sheer exuberance, like brats on Hallowe'en. They would stop at nothing.

And Rose and the kids....

This was it. What he'd been so scared of all along. It was at least partly his own fault. And there was no way to stop it now.

"I love tomatoes, Mr. Pun'kins," Neely rumbled at Endlich's side, reaching for the drink that had been set before him. "But first I'm gonna smear you all over the camp.... Take my time--do a good job....

Because y'didn't give me any tomatoes...."

Whereat, John Endlich took the only slender advantage at hand for him--surprise. With all the strength of his muscular body, backed up by dread and pent-up fury, he sent a gloved fist crashing straight into Neely's open face-window. Even the pang in his well-protected knuckles was a satisfaction--for he knew that the damage to Neely's ugly features must be many times greater.

The blow, occurring under the conditions of Vesta's tiny gravity, had an entirely un-Earthly effect. Neely, eyes glazing, floated gently up and away. And Endlich, since he had at the last instant clutched Neely's arm, was drawn along with the miner in a graceful, arcing flight through the smoky air of the bar. Both armored bodies, lacking nothing in inertia, tore through the tough plastic window, and they bounced lightly on the pavement of the main section of the rec-dome.

Neely was as limp as a wet rag, sleeping peacefully, blood all over his crushed face. But that he was out of action signified no peace, when so many of his buddies were nearby, and beginning to seethe, like a swarm of hornets.

So there was an element of despair in Endlich's quick actions as he slammed Neely's face-window and his own shut, picked up his enemy, and used his jets to propel him in the long leap to the airlock of the dome.

He had no real plan. He just had the ragged and all but hopeless thought of using Neely as a hostage--as a weapon in the bitter and desperate attempt to defend his wife and children from the mob that would be following close behind him....

Tumbling end over end with his light but bulky burden, he sprawled at the threshold of the airlock, where the guard, posted there, had stepped hastily out of his way. Again, capricious luck, surprise, and swift action were on his side. He pressed the control-b.u.t.ton of the lock, and squirmed through its double valves before the startled guard could stop him.

Then he slammed his jets wide, and aimed for the horizon.

It was a wild journey--for, to fly straight in a frictionless vacuum, any missile must be very well balanced; and the inertia and the slight but unwieldy weight of Neely's bulk disturbed such balance in his own jet-equipped s.p.a.ce suit. The journey was made, then, not in a smooth arc, but in a series of erratic waverings. But what Endlich lacked in precise direction, he made up in sheer reckless, dread-driven speed.

From the very start of that wild flight, he heard voices in his helmet phones:

"d.a.m.n pun'kin-head greenhorn! Did you see how he hit Neely, Schmidt?

Yeah--by surprise.... Yeah--Kuzak. I saw. He hit without warning....

d.a.m.n yella yokel.... Who's comin' along to get him?..."

Sure--there was another side to it--other voices:

"Shucks--Neely had it coming to him. I hope the farmer really murders that big lunkhead.... You ain't kiddin', Muir. I was glad to see his face splatter like a rotten tamata...."

Okay--fine. It was good to know you had some sensible guys on your side.

But what good was it, when the camp as a whole was boiling over from its internal troubles? There were more than enough roughnecks to do a mighty messy job--fast.

Panting with tension, Endlich swooped down before his greenhouse, and dragged Neely inside through the airlock. For a fleeting instant the sights and sounds and smells that impinged on his senses, as he opened his face-window once more, brought him a regret. The rustle of corn, the odor of greenery, the chicken voices--there was home in all of this.

Something pastoral and beautiful and orderly--gained with hard work. And something brought back--restored--from the remote past. The buzzing of the tay-tay bug was even a real echo from that smashed yet undoubtedly once beautiful world of antiquity.

But these were fragile concerns, beside the desperate question of the immediate safety of Rose and the kids.... Already cries and shouts and comments were coming faintly through his helmet phones again:

"Get the yokel! Get the b.u.m!... We'll fix his wagon good...."

The pack was on the way--getting closer with every heartbeat. Never in his life had Endlich experienced so harrowing a time as this; never, if by some miracle he lived, could he expect another equal to it.

To stand and fight, as he would have done if he were alone, would mean simply that he would be cut down. To try the peacemaking of appeas.e.m.e.nt, would have probably the same result--plus, for himself, the dishonor of contempt.

So, where was there to turn, with grim, unanswering blankness on every side?

John Endlich felt mightily an old yearning--that of a fundamentally peaceful man for a way to oppose and win against brutal, overpowering odds without using either serious violence or the even more futile course of supine submission. Here on Vesta, this had been the issue he had faced all along. In many ages and many nations--and probably on many planets throughout the universe--others had faced it before him.

To his straining and tortured mind the trite and somewhat mocking answers came: Psychology. Salesmanship. The selling of respect for one's self.

Ah, yes. These were fine words. Glib words. But the question, "How?" was more bitter and derisive than ever.

Still, he had to try something--to make at least a forlorn effort. And now, from certain beliefs that he had, coupled with some vague observations that he had made during the last hour, a tattered suggestion of what form that effort might take, came to him.

As for his personal defects that had given him trouble in the past--well--he was lugubriously sure that he had learned a final lesson about liquor. For him it always meant trouble. As for wanderl.u.s.t, and the gambling and h.e.l.l-raising urge--he had been willing to stay put on Vesta, named for the G.o.ddess of home, for weeks, now. And he was now about to make his last great gamble. If he lost, he wouldn't be alive to gamble again. If, by great good-fortune, he won--well he was certain that all the charm of unnecessary chance-taking would, by the memory of these awful moments, be forever poisoned in him.

Now Rose and the youngsters came hurrying toward him.

"Back so soon, Johnny?" Rose called. "What's this? What happened?"

"Who's the guy, Pop?" Evelyn asked. "Oh--Baloney Nose.... What are you doing with him?"

But by then they all had guessed some of the tense mood, and its probable meaning.

"Neely's pals are coming, Honey," Endlich said quietly. "It's the showdown. Hide the kids. And yourself. Quick. Under the house, maybe."

Rose's pale eyes met his. They were comprehending, they were worried, but they were cool. He could see that she didn't want to leave him.

Evelyn looked as though she might begin to whimper; but her small jaw hardened.

Bubs' lower lip trembled. But he said valiantly: "I'll get the guns, Pop, I'm stayin' with yuh."

"No you're not, son," John Endlich answered. "Get going. Orders. Get the guns to keep with you--to watch out for Mom and Sis."

Rose took the kids away with her, without a word. Endlich wondered how to describe what was maybe her last look at him. There were no fancy words in his mind. Just Love. And deep concern.

Alf Neely was showing signs of returning consciousness. Which was good.

Still dragging him, Endlich went and got a bushel basket. It was filled to the brim with ripe, red tomatoes, but he could carry its tiny weight on the palm of one hand, scarcely noticing that it was there.

For an instant Endlich scanned the sky, through the clear plastic roof of the great bubble. He saw at least a score of shapes in s.p.a.ce armor, arcing nearer--specks in human form, glowing with reflected sunlight, like little hurtling moons among the stars. Neely's pals. In a moment they would arrive.