The Colonists Part 5

"What about you?" he asked James. "Were you sucked in by Boggs'

arguments?"

The engineer nodded. "He took all of us. And all along he never intended that more than a couple would get out alive--by double crossing the others."

"Why?" said Jorden.

"Why? I've thought a lot about that, living here in this mudhole. You get to thinking about things like that when you realize there's no going back, that Boggs would kill me on sight for what I could tell--and that the other colonists would also, because of what I've done. Adamson says I can trust him. He says I can trust you. But I don't trust anybody. I know that someday soon I'm going to get a bullet in the head from one of you. All I'm hoping is that some of you hate Boggs enough to get him first."

"Why did you come to Serrengia in the first place?"

"To get away. Why did anyone come? You don't give up everything you've got in order to go to some strange world and spend the rest of your life unless you've got a reason. Unless you hate what you've got so much you're willing to try anything else. Unless you're so terribly afraid of what could happen to you back there that you're willing to face any kind of dangers out here. We all had our reasons. I'm not asking yours. It makes no difference to you what mine were. But they're all alike. We came because we were so afraid or full of hate we couldn't stay."

"How did you expect to build a new world out of hate and fear of the old one?"

"Who worried about what we'd build here? All we wanted to do was get away. You can't tell me _you_ came for any other reason!"

Jorden made no answer. He continued to stare in wonder at the atomic engineer. To what extent were James' words actually true? How completely was the colony riddled with unpredictable, purposeless characters like him?

If they had fled Earth with a purpose to create something better than they left, there was a chance. But if James was right that most of them had come in blind flight with no goal at all then the Earth colony of Serrengia would be dead long before the ships came again.

But Jorden did not believe this. He did not believe that any but a small fraction of the colonists had any feeling toward Earth except that of love. Most had come because they wanted to do this particular thing with their lives. Nothing had driven or forced them to it.

"Tell me what Boggs did, and what he persuaded you to do," said Jorden.

In detail, James told him how Boggs had gained influence with the technicians necessary to prepare the plant for destruction, how he had persuaded them that a new, idealistic social order demanded their obedience to this fantastic plan. Then, under the Governor's direction, two of the men betrayed the rest. Only James, who was at a slight distance from his normal operating post that night, had escaped with non-fatal injuries.

"I know how you feel," said James. "You'd like to stick a knife into me now. But until you succeed in disposing of Boggs, you need to be sure I'm alive. When that's over you'll send someone around to take care of the traitor, James. But you may be sure I won't be here. I'll get through your guards!"

The man was half crazed, Jorden thought, from infection and fever in half treated wounds, and probably from the effects of radiation itself.

"We aren't going to set up any guards," he said. "We're going to send you medical care. Don't try to get away down the river. I'll have some men who'll take you where you'll be safe and have care."

Jorden left, on the hope that James would not attempt further flight until he was a.s.sured of Boggs' defeat. But the colony could not quickly administer the kind of defeat James wanted. They had to be orderly, even if it was a frontier community. There had to be a trial. There had to be evidence, and James had to be called to give it.

He returned to the village and made arrangements with Adamson to get medical care for James. Dr. Babbit, one of the four physicians with the colony, was sufficiently out of sympathy with Boggs to be trusted.

Then, with his family, he accompanied Tibbets to Maintown. On the bulletin board outside the Council Hall he hung an announcement of his candidacy for the governorship, which Tibbets had prepared for him.

Tibbets made a little speech to the handful of people who gathered to read what was on the bulletin, but Jorden declined to make any personal statement just now. He had enough to say when it came time to accuse Boggs of the crimes involved in destruction of the power plant.

But among those who squinted closely at Tibbets' fine, black printing there came a look of mild awe. It had been generally a.s.sumed that Boggs would go unopposed for re-election.

On the way back Tibbets' car pa.s.sed the length of Maintown and took them by the deserted house which Jorden had built in their first year on Serrengia. Bonnie gave it a covetous look, contrasting its s.p.a.ciousness with the primitive cabin in which she now lived.

Tibbets caught her glance. "If it were not for Boggs you would still be living there," he said.

Bonnie made no answer. Both she and Roddy stared ahead, as if unable to bring their attention to bear upon the present, because of the fear incited by everything about them. Jorden was also silent, but his eyes wandered incessantly over the surrounding hills and distant farmlands.

He hadn't bargained for anything like this. He had expected to find himself in a society of cooperative and uniformly energetic human beings. He knew now, without any further persuasion, that this had been a vision strictly from an ivory tower.

He should have antic.i.p.ated that in a group like this there would be a sprinkling of small time thugs and dictators and generally shiftless individuals who could not make a go of it in the society they had left.

At home you could live and work with such without ever being more than vaguely aware of their eccentricities. Here, their deviation from required cooperation was enough to disrupt the whole community.

He could understand the terror in Bonnie and Roddy. They had come only because of him, with no understanding of the colony's purpose. The present turmoil underlined their conviction that it had been pure folly to come. Somehow he'd have to show them. He'd have to make them understand there was a reason for being on Serrengia. But at the moment he did not know how to do it.

The program called for a continuation well into the night with a long scene at the cabin, but Ashby interrupted it as soon as they returned from Maintown. He ordered a twenty four hour rest, because of Bonnie.

The extended period of sleep wouldn't harm Jorden.

Bonnie, however, was furious at the interruption as she came out of the test pit.

"If you're going to let it go to the end, why don't you get on with it?"

she demanded. "The whole thing is so far off the track that you might as well find out as soon as possible that you're not getting anywhere."

"I think we're beginning to find out a great deal. But I want you to have a rest. The hours of this shift are much too long for you."

"You think you know what's going on inside Mark Jorden by watching the dials and meters, but you don't, because it's not himself he's concerned about. It's a goal outside and bigger than himself. The colony _means_ something to him. It never meant anything at all to any of the others."

"Then this is the kind of situation we've been looking for."

"But we haven't the techniques or insight to understand it. We can a.n.a.lyze a man who's running away--but we're not prepared for one who's running _toward_."

The night after they returned from Maintown a terrific storm broke over the plateau. It began at supper time and for an hour poured torrents of water on the land. Jorden wanted to go down to the river to see if their diversion dams were holding. If they went out it meant long days of hard hand labor restoring them.

He gave in, however, to Bonnie's plea to stay in the house with them.

Roddy was frightened of the storm and looked physically ill when thunder made the walls of the cabin shake. It wouldn't change the actual facts of the damage to the dams whether Jorden examined them now or in the morning. He tried to think up stories to tell the children, but it was hard to make up some dealing only with Serrengia and ignoring Earth, as he had to do for Roddy's sake.

After the rain finally stopped and Bonnie had put the children to bed there came a knock at the door. Bonnie opened it. Governor Boggs and two Council members moved into the room. Little pools of water drained to the floor about their feet.

The Governor turned slowly and grinned at Bonnie and Mark Jorden as the light from the lamp and the fireplace fell upon him. "Nasty night out,"

he said. "For a time I was afraid we weren't going to make it."

Boggs was a short, stout man and carried himself very erect. He seemed to exaggerate his normal posture as he moved toward the chairs Bonnie offered the men.

Jorden remained seated in his big wooden chair by the fireplace glancing up with cold challenge in his face as his visitors settled on the opposite side of the fire.

"I'm sorry we missed you when you were in town today," said Boggs. "It was not until late this afternoon that I became aware of your visit."

He reached to an inner coat pocket and drew forth a paper which he unfolded carefully. Jorden recognized it as the announcement he had tacked on the bulletin board. Boggs pa.s.sed it over.

"I felt sure you would wish to withdraw this, Jorden, after you had given it a little fuller consideration. I'm sure that by now you have had time to think over the matter a little more calmly and find a good many reasons why you should withdraw your announcement."

"I haven't thought much about it," said Jorden, "but now that you call it to my attention I am becoming aware of an increasing number of reasons why I should not withdraw. I a.s.sure you I have no intention of doing so."

Boggs smiled and folded up the paper and slipped it into the fire. "I have not been such a bad administrator during my first term of office, have I Jorden?"

"That is for the people to decide--on election day."