To the Stars Trilogy Part 19

Whatever discussions and plans had been proposed were long since buried in forgotten files. But the few options open were fairly obvious. Simplest, and most expensive, would be to provide for two different work forces. While duplicating machinery and buildings would not be excessively expensive, the thought of a work force loafing in air conditioned buildings for five years out of every nine was totally unacceptable. Unthinkable to work managers who wrung every erg of effort from their labor-ers with lifetime contracts. Transportation by sea must have been considered; Halvm6rk was mostly ocean, except for the two polar continents and some island chains. But this would have meant land transportation to the ocean, then large, expensive ships that could weather the violent tropical storms.

Ships that had to be maintained and serviced to be used just once every four and a half years. Also unthinkable. Then was there a possible solution?

There was. The terraforming engineers had much experience in making planets habitable to man. They could purify poison atmospheres, melt icecaps and cool tropics, cultivate deserts and eliminatejungles.

They could even raise land ma.s.ses where desired, sink others that were not needed. These latter dramatic changes were brought about by the careful placing of gravitronic bombs. Each of these was the size of a small building, and had to be a.s.sembled in a specially dug cavern deep in the ground. The manner of their operation was a secret carefully kept by the corporation that built them-but what they did was far from secret. When activated, a gravitronic bomb brought about a sudden surge of seismic activity. A planet's crust would be riven, the magma below released, which in turn brought about normal seismic activity. Of course this could only be effective where the tectonic plates overlapped, but this ustially allowed for a wide enough lat.i.tude of choice.

The gravitronic bombs had brought a chain of flam-ing volcanoes from the ocean deeps of Halvm6rk, volca-noes that vomited out lava that cooled and turned to stone to form an island chain. Before the volcanic activity died down, the islands became a land bridge connecting the two continents. After this it was, relatively speaking, a simple matter to lower the tallest mountains with hydro-gen bombs. Even simpler still was the final step of leveling the rough-shaped land with fusion guns. These same guns smoothed the surface to make a solid stone highway from continent to continent, reaching almost from pole to pole, a single road 27,000 kilometers in length.

Doing this could not have been cheap. But the corpo-rations were all-powerful, and controlled the Earth's wealth completely. A consortium could have been formed easily enough, was formed, for the returns would be rich and continue forever.

The forced settlers of Halvm6rk were migrant farm-ers with a vengeance. For four years did they labor, raising and storing their crop against the day when the ships came. It was the long awaited, highly exciting, most im-portant event in the cycle of their existence. The work ended when the ships signaled their arrival. The standing corn was left in the field and the party began, for the ships also brought everything that made life possible on this basically inhospitable world. Fresh seed when needed, for the mutated strains were unstable and the farmers were not agricultural scientists who could control this.

Clothing and machine parts, new radioactive slugs for the atomic engines, all the thousand and one parts and -sup-plies that maintained a machine-based culture on a non-manufactu ring planet. The ships stayed just long enough to offload the supplies and fill their holds with the grain. Then they left and the party ended. All the marriages were consummated, for this was the only time when mar-riage was allowed, all the celebrations finished, all the liquor drunk.

Then the trip began.

They moved like gypsies. The only permanent struc-tures were the machine storage buildings and the thick-walled grain silos. When the part.i.tions had been taken down and the tall doors levered open, the trucks and copters, the ma.s.sive harvesters, planters and other farm machinery were wheeled inside. With their vitals coc.o.o.ned and their machinery sealed in silicon grease, they would wait out the heat of the summer until the farmers returned the following fall.

Everything else went. The a.s.sembly hall and the other pressurized dome structures were deflated and packed away. When the jacks were retracted, all the other narrow, long buildings settled onto the springs and wheels beneath them. The women had been canning and storing food for months, the slaughter of the sheep and cows haef filled the freezers with meat. Only a few chicks, ewe lambs and cow calves would be taken; fresh herds and flocks would be raised from the sperm bank.

When everything was in place the farm tractors and trucks would haul the units into position to form the long trains, before being mothballed and sealed into the per-manent buildings and silos themselves. The engines, the main drive units, would be unjacked after four years of acting as power plants, and would rumble into place at the head of each train. With the couplings and cables connect ed, the train would come to life. All the windows would be sealed and the air conditioning switched on. It would not be turned off again until they had reached the twilight zone of the southern hemisphere, and the temperatures were bearable again. The thermometer could easily top 200 degrees when they crossed the equator.

Though the night temperatures sometimes fell as low as 130 degrees this could not be counted upon.

Halvm6rk rotates in eighteen hours, and the nights are too short for any real temperature drop.

"Jan Kulozik, there is a question for you. Your atten-tion here, Kulozik, that is an order!" Chun Taekeng's voice was beginning to crack a bit after a good evening of shouting.

Jan turned from the map and faced them. There were a lot of questions but he ignored them all until the noise died down.

"Listen to me," Jan said. "I have worked out in detail what must be done, and I will give you the figures.

But before I do you must decide. Do we take the corn or not, it is just that simple. We must leave, you cannot argue about that. And before you decide about the corn, remember two things. If and when the ships come they will need that corn because people will be starving. Thousands, perhaps millions, will die if they do not get it. If we do not have that corn waiting, their lives will be on our heads.

"If the ships do not come, why then we will die too. Our supplies are low, broken parts cannot be replaced, two of the engines already have lowered output and will need refueling after thi~ trip. We can live for a few years, but we are eventually doomed. Think' about that, then decide.

"Mr. Chairman, I ask for a vote."

When The Hra4il rose and signaled for attention, Jan knew that it would be a long, dragged-out battle.

This old woman, leader of the Mahrova Family, represented the strength of reaction, the force against change. She was shrewd, but she had the mind of a peasant. What was old was good, what was new was evil. All change worsened things, life must be immutable. She was listened to with respect by the other leaders, because she voiced best all their unreasoned and repet.i.tious rationalizations. They settled down when she stood, ready for the calming balm of stupidity, the repeating as law of age-old, narrow-minded opinion.

"I have listened to what this young man has said. I value his opinion even though he is not a leader, or even a member of one of our families." Well done, Jan thought. Take away all my credentials with your opening words, sound preparation to destroy the arguments.

"Despite this," she continued, "we must listen to his ideas and weigh them on their own merit. What he has said is right. It is the only way. We must take the corn. It is our ancient trust, the reason for our existence. I ask for a vote by acclamation so no one can complain later if things do not go right. I call upon you all to agree to leave at once, and to take the corn. Anyone who does not agree will now stand."

It would have taken a far stronger individual than any of those present to rise to his feet before that cold eye. And they were confused. First with a new idea, something they thought very little of at any time, much less at a time when the decision was one upon which their lives might depend. Then to have this idea supported by The Hradil, whose will was their will in almost every way. It was very disturbing. It took some thinking about, and by the time they had thought for a while it was too late to stand and face the woman so, with a good deal of irritated muttering, and some dark looks, the measure was carried by acclamation.

Jan did not like it, but he could not protest. Yet he was still suspicious. He was sure The Hradil hated him as intensely as he hated her. Yet she had backed his idea and forced the others into line. He would pay for this some time, in some way he could not understand now. The h.e.l.l with it. At least they had agreed.

"What do we do next?" The Hradil asked, turning in his direction but not facing him squarely. She would use him but she would not recognize him.

"We put the trains together as we always do. But before this is done the leaders here must make lists of nonessentials that can be left behind. We will go over those lists together. Then these items will be left with the ma-chinery. Some of them will be destroyed by the heat, but we have no alternative. Two cars in every train will be used for living quarters. This will mean crowding, but it must be done. All of the other cars will be filled with corn. I have calculated this weight and the cars will carry it. The engines will go slower but, with proper precautions, they can move the trains."

"The people will not like -it," The Hradil said, and many heads nodded.

"I know that, but you are the family leaders and you must make them obey. You exercise authority in every other matter, such as marriage," he looked pointedly at The Hradil when he said this, but she was just as pointed-ly looking away. "So be firm with them. It is not as though you are elected officials who can be replaced. Your rule is absolute. Exercise it. This trip will not be the easy, slow affair that it always has been. It will be fast and it will be hard. And living in the silos in Southtown will be uncom-fortable until the trains return a second time. Tell the people that. Tell them now so they cannot complain later.

Tell. them that we will not drive the five hours a day as we have always done before, but will go on for at least eighteen hours a day. We will be going slower and we are late already. And the trains must make a second round trip. We will have very little time as it is. Now there is one other thing."

This was the second decision they would have to make and the most important to him personally. He hoped that Lee Ciou would do as he had agreed. The Pilot Captain did not really like people, did not like politics, and had been hard to convince that he must take a part in what was to come.

'All of this is new," Jan said. "There must be a coordinator for the changes, then the first trip, and a commander for the second trip. Someone must- be in charge. Who do you suggest?"

Another decision. How they hated this. They looked around and murmured. Lee Ciou stood up, stood silently, then forced himself to speak.

"Jan Kulozik must do it. He is the only one who knows what to do." He sat down at once.

The silence lasted long seconds, while they ran the thought around and around in their minds, shocked by the newness, the break from tradition, the unexpectedness of it all.

"No!" Chun Taekeng shrieked, his face red with an anger even greater than normal, banging and banging with the gavel, unaware he was even doing it. "lvan s.e.m.e.nov will organize the trip. Ivan s.e.m.e.nov always organizes the trip. He is Trainmaster. That is the way it has been done, that is the way it will always be done." Spittle flew from his lips with the violence of his words so that those in the front row leaned away, wiping surrept.i.tiously at their faces-though nodding in agreement at the same time. This was something they could understand, neither going back nor going forward, but staying with the tried and true.

"Stop that banging, Taekeng, before you break the hammer," The Hradil said, hissing the words like a snake. The chairman gaped, he gave orders, he did not take orders, this was without precedent. As he hesitated the gavel hung in midair and The Hradil spoke again before he could gather his thoughts.

"Better, much better. We must think of what is right, not what has been done before. This is a new thing we are doing so perhaps we will need a new organizer. I do not say we do. Perhaps. Why don't we ask Ivan s.e.m.e.nov what he thinks. What do you think, Ivan?"

The big man rose slowly to his feet, pulling at his beard, looking around at the technical officers and heads of families, trying to read their reactions on their faces. There was no help there. Anger, yes, and a great deal more confusion-but no decision at all.

"Perhaps Jan should be considered, perhaps to plan if you know what I mean. Changes, they must be planned, and two trips. I really don't know "If you don't know, shut up," Chun Taekeng called out, banging once with the gavel for emphasis. But he had been shouting and banging all night so was ignored. Ivan went on.

"If I don't know about these changes, then I will need some help. Jan Kulozik knows, it is his plan. He knows what to do. I will organize as always, but he can order the changes to be made. I must approve, yes, I insist, approv-al, but he could arrange the new things."

Jan turned away so they could not see his face and know how he felt. How he tried not to, but how he hated these people. He rubbed the back of~his hand across his lips to rub away some of the distaste. No one noticed, they were watching The Hradil as she spoke, face framed by the hatch. "I'm going to s.e.m.e.nov, to Chun Taekeng. You're getting thrown out, you've gone too far Jan took one weary - step forward and raised his fist, and the face vanished instantly. Yes, he had gone too far, had shown the bully to be a coward. Hem would never forgive him. Particularly since there had been a witness. Lajos Nagy sat in the co-driver's seat in silence, silent but well aware of what had happened.

"Start the motors, Jan said. "You think I was too hard on him, Lajos?"

"He's all right when you work with him a while."

"I'll bet he's worse the longer he's around."

A deep vibration shook the floor as the gear trains were engaged and Jan c.o.c.ked his head, listening. The tank was in good shape. "Pa.s.s the word to the others, start engines," he said. He dogged the hatch shut as the air conditioner came on, then slid into the driver's seat, his feet on the brakes, his hands resting lightly on the wheel that synchronised track speed and clutches. Twenty tonnes of machinery vibrated gently with antic.i.p.ation, waiting his command.

"Tell them to stay in line behind me, hundred-meter intervals. We're moving out."

Lajos hesitated for just an instant before he switched on his microphone and relayed the order. He was a good man, one of Jan's mechanics when they weren't on the Road.

Jan eased the wheel forward and tilted it at the same time. The whine of the gearboxes grew in pitch and the tank lurched ahead as the clutches engaged, the heavy tracks slapping down on the solid rock of the Road. When he switched on the rear camera he saw the rest of the tanks rumble to life on the screen and move out behind him. They were on the way. The broad central street of the city slipped past, the looming walls of the warehouses, then the first of the farms beyond. He kept the controls on manual until the last of the buildings was behind him and the Road had narrowed. The tank picked up speed as he switched to automatic and sat back. A wire, imbedded beneath the congealed lava surface of the Road, acted as a guide. The column of tanks roared on past the farms toward the desert beyond.

They were into the sandy wastes, the unreeling rib-bon of Road the only sign of mankind's existence, before the expected message came through.

"I'm having radio trouble, I'll call you back," Jan said, switching off the microphone. The other tanks were on FM command frequency, so should not have intercepted the message. Now that he had started this thing he was going to finish it in his own way.

They were over three hundred kilometers from the settlement before they hit the first problem. Sand had drifted across the Road, forming a barrier two meters thick at its highest. Jan halted the column while his tank crawled up the slope. It wasn't too bad.

"Which are the two with the biggest dozer blades?"

"Seventeen and nine," Lajos said.

"Get them up here to clean this stuff away. Get a second driver from the house car, have him stay with you until Hem Ritters.p.a.ch gets here. He won't be bearable for a couple of days, so try to ignore him. I'll radio for him to come in a copter, if it's not on the way already, and I'll~go back with it.

"I hope there won't be trouble."

Jan smiled, tired but happy at having done some-thing. "Of course there will be trouble. That's all there ever is. But this column is moving fine, Ritters.p.a.ch won't dare turn back now. All he can do is push on."

Jan sent the message, then kicked open the hatch and climbed down onto the sand. Was it warmer here~)rjust his imagination? And wasn't it lighter on the southern horizon? It might very well be; dawn wasn't that far away. He stood aside while the tanks ground up the slope and churned past him, the last in the column, towing the house car, stopping just long enough for the relief driver to climb down. The dozers were just attacking the sand when the flutter of the helicopter could be heard above the sound of their tracks. It had been on the way well before his message had been received. It circled once, then settled slowly onto the Road. Jan went to meet it.

Three men climbed down, and Jan knew that the trouble was not over, was perhaps just beginning. He spoke first, hoping to keep them off balance.

"Ivan, what the devil are you doing here? Who is taking care of things with both of us out on the Road?"

Ivan s.e.m.e.nov twisted his fingers in his beard and looked miserable, groping for words. Hem Ritters.p.a.ch, an a.s.sistant Proctor close by his side, spoke first.

"I'm taking you back, Kulozik, under official arrest. You are going to be charged with "s.e.m.e.nov, exert your authority,"Jan called out loudly, turning his back on the two Proctors, well aware of the sidearms that both men wore, their hands close to the b.u.t.ts. There was a tightness between his shoulder blades that he tried to ignore. "You are Trainmaster. This is an emergency. The tanks are clearing the Road. Hem must be with them, he is in command. We can talk about his little problems when we get to Southtown."

"The tanks can wait; this must be done first! You attacked me!"

Hem was shaking with rage, his gun half drawn. Jan turned sideways enough to watch both Proct6rs.

s.e.m.e.nov finally spoke.

"A serious matter, this. Perhaps we had all better return to town and discuss it quietly."

"There is no time for discussion~r quiet"Jan shouted the words, pretending anger to feed the other's anger as well. "This fat fool is under my command. I never touched him. He's lying. This is mutiny. If he does not instant~ rejoin the tanks I shall charge him and disarm him and imprison him?'

The slash of the words was, of course, too great a burden for Hem to bear. He pawed at his holster, clutched his gun and drew it. As soon as the muzzle was clear, before it could be raised, Jan acted.

He turned and grabbed Hem's wrist with his own right hand, his left hand slapping hard above the other's elbow. Still turning, using speed and weight, he levered the man's arm up beside his back so hard that Hem howled with pain. Uncontrollably the big man's fingers went limp, the gun began to drop~and Jan kept pushing. It was cruel, but he must do it. There was a cracking sound that shuddered Hem's body as the arm broke, and only then did Jan let go. The gun clattered on the stone surface of the Road and Hem slid down slowly after it. Jan turned to the other armed man.

"I am in command here, Proctor. I order you to aid this wounded man and take him into the copter.

Train-master s.e.m.e.nov concurs with this order."

The young Proctor looked from one to the other of them in an agony of indecision. s.e.m.e.nov, confused, did not speak, and his silence gave the man no guide. Hem groaned loudly with pain and writhed on the unyielding rock. With this reminder the Proctor decided; he let his half-drawn gun drop back into the holster and knelt beside his wounded commander.

"You should not have done that, Jan." s.e.m.e.nov shook his head unhappily. "It makes things difficult."

Jan took him by the arm and drew him aside. "Things were already difficult. You must take my word that I never attacked Hem. I have a witness to back me up if you have any doubts. Yet he built this trouble up so large that one of us had to go. He is expendable. His second in com-mand, Lajos, can take over. Hem will ride in the train, and his arm will knit, and he'll cause more trouble at Southtown. But not now. We must move as planned."

There was nothing for s.e.m.e.nov to say. The decision had been taken from him and he did not regret it.

He took the medical bag from the copter and attempted to fit an airbag splint onto the broken arm. They could only do this after an injection had put the wailing Hem under. The return trip was made in silence.

Four.

Jan lay back on his bunk, his muscles too tired to relax, going over his lists just one i~h.o.r.e time. They were only hours away from departure. The last of the corn was being loaded now. As the silos were emptied the part.i.tions were removed so that the heavy equipment could be rolled in. Coated with silicon grease and coc.o.o.ned with spun plastic, they would sit out the 200 degree heat of the four-year long summer. All of them, trucks, copters, reap-ers, were duplicated and in storage at Southtown, so need not be carried with them on the trek. They had their stocks of frozen food, the chicks, lambs and calves to start anew the herds and flocks, home furnishings-now painfully reduced-and the corn filling most of all the cars. The water tanks were full; he wrote and underlined. Water. First thing in the morning he must hook into the computer relay and put the Northpoint desalination plant on standby. It had already stopped all secondary func-tions, chemical and mineral extraction, fertilizer produc-tion, and was operating at minimum to keep the 1300-kilometer-long ca.n.a.l and tunnel complex filled with water. He could stop that now; the farming was over for this season. There was a knock on the door, so soft at first that he wasn't sure he had heard it. It was repeated.

"Just a moment."

He pushed the sheets of paper together into a rough heap and dropped them onto the table. His legs were stiff as he shuffled across the plastic floor in his bare feet and opened the door. Lee Ciou, the radio technician, stood outside.

'Am I bothering you, Jan?" He seemed worried.

"Not really. Just rattling papers when I should be sleeping."

"Perhaps another time.

"Come in, now you're here. Have a cup of tea and then maybe we'll both get some sleep."

Lee bent and picked up a box that had been out of sight beside the door, and brought it in with him. Jan busied himself with boiling water from the kitchen tap, hotting the pot, then adding tea leaves to brew. He waited for Lee to talk first. Lee was a quiet man with a mind like one of his own printed circuits. Thought was processed back and forth, emerging only after a measured period of time, complete and final.

"You are from Earth," he finally said.

"I think that is a pretty well known fact. Milk?"

"Thank you. On Earth, I understand, there are many levels of society, not just a single population as we have here?"

"You might say that. It's a varied society; you've seen a lot of it on the programs from Earth. People have differ-ent jobs, live in different countries. Lots of variety."

Lee's forehead had a fine beading of sweat; he was disturbed, uncomfortable. Jan shook his head wearily and wondered just where this was all leading.

'Are there criminals, too?" Lee asked, and Jan was suddenly very much awake.

Careful, Jan thought, be very careful. Don't say too much; don't commit yourselL "There probably must be some. There are police after all. Why do you ask?"

"Have you ever known criminals, or people who have broken the law?"

Jan could not stay quiet. He was too tired, his nerves rubbed too raw.

'Are you a narkman? Is that your job here?" His voice flat and cold. Lee raised his eyebrows but his expression did not change.

"Me? No, of course not. Why should I send reports to offworld police about things that happen on Halvmo.rk?"