To the Stars Trilogy Part 31

That's a relief," Otakar said.

"I couldn't agree more.

They went on until the tank was stopped by an immense drift of dust and rock that completely blocked the Road. All they could do was back to one side and wait for the tanks with blades. They caught up quickly because all they were doing on the first pa.s.s was making a cut big enough to let them through.

They would return and widen it for the trains.

The driver of the dozer tank waved as he tackled the mountainous ma.s.s, and was soon out of sight behind it. "It's getting shallow again," he reported by radio. "Not deep at all on this side~..." Ris voice ended in a gasp.

"What is it?" Jan asked. "Come in. Can you hear me?"

"Better see for yourself," the driver reported. "But come through slowly."

Jan ground his tank forward through the gap, saw the tread marks of the other tank, saw that it had backed to one side so he could see the Road ahead.

It was clear now why the driver had gasped. There was no Road ahead. It ended at the brink of a fissure, a small valley that must have been a kilometer wide at least.

The ground had opened up and swallowed the Road, leaving an unspannable chasm in its place.

Sixteen.

"It's gone-the Road's gone," Otakar said, gasping out the words.

"Nonsense!" Jan was angry. Re was not going to be stopped. "This fissure can't go on forever. We'll follow it away from the volcano, away from the area of seismic activity."

"I only hope that you're right."

"Well we don't have much choice~o we?" There was no. warmth at all in the smile that went with the words.

It was slow and dangerous work once they were away from the hard surface of the Road. The burnt jungle was a barrier of stumps, with ash and dust filled pits between that could trap a tank. They were caught this way time and. again, one tank after another. Each time it happened a weary driver would go out in a coldsuit to attach cables to drag the trapped vehicle clear. The dust and ash clung to their suits and was carried back into the tanks, until everything was coated and filthy. After relentless hours of labor the men were close to exhaustion. Jan realized this and called a halt.

"We'll take a break. Clean up. a bit, get something to eat and drink."

"I have a feeling I'll never be clean again," Otakar said, grimacing as the grit in the food ground between his teeth. The radio light signaled for attention and Jan flicked it on.

"Senenov here. How is it coming?"

"Slowly. I'm taking a wide swing in the hope we will be able to bypa.s.s the fissure. I don't want to have to make a second cut. Is the loading done?"

"Last train filled and sealed. I've pulled the trains two k:lomet~ down the Road. The spilled carn is beginning to catch fire, and I wanted us clear of any danger."

"Yes, kee p them well away. The silos will go next-will probably exp ode from the internal pressure. I'll keep you informed of our prQgress."

They went through two more sleep periods, locked in. the filthy tanks, before they reached the volcanic fissure again. Jan saw it appear suddenly as the burnt tree he was pushing aside disappeared over the edge. He jammed on both brakes, then wiped the inside of the front port as the clouds of ash settled out-side.

"It's still there," Otakar said, unable to keep the despair from his voice.

"Yes-but it's no more than a hundred meters wide. If it's no deeper, we'll just start filling it and we won't have to go any further."

It was just possible. As the tanks widened and leveled the new track they had cut, the debris was pushed over the edge. Fusion guns burned and com-pacted it while more and more rubble was added to the growing mound. Eventually it reached the top and the first tank clanked gingerly forward onto the new surface. It held.

"I want more fill in there," Jan ordered. "Keep the fusion guns on it too. Those engines and trains are a lot heavier than these tanks. We'll split into two groups. One to compact the fill, the other to cut a track back to the Road on the other side. I'll get the trains up behind us, ready to cross as soon as we're done."

It was a rough and ready job, the best they could do. They labored for more than a hundred hours before Jan was satisfied with the result.

"I'm going to bring the first train over. The rest of you stand by."

He had not been out of his clothes since they had started the job; his skin was smeared and black, his eyes red-rimmed and sore. Alzbeta gasped when she saw him-when he looked in the mirror and saw why, he had to smile, himself.

"If you make some coffee I'll wash up and change. That was not a job I would like to do again."

"It's all finished then?"

'All except getting the trains over. I've emptied every-one out of the first one and as soon as I finish this I'll take it through."

"Couldn't someone else drive it? Why does it have to be you?"

Jan drank his coffee in silence, then put down the empty cup and stood. "You know why. Ride in the second train and I'll see you on the other side."

There was fear in her tight-clamped arms, but she said nothing more as she kissed him, then watched him leave. She wanted to ride with him, but knew what his answer would be without asking. He would do this alone.

With the automatic guidance disconnected the train turned away from the center of the Road toward the raw gash that had been slashed through the burnt jungle. The engine left the smooth Road surface and rose and fell as it ground along. Obediently, one by one, the cars tracked behind it, following in its deep-cut wheel tracks.

"So far no problems," Jan said into the microphone. "b.u.mpy but not bad at all. I'm holding at five K's all the way. I want the other dnvers to do the same.

Re didn't stop when he came to the filled-in fissure but ground steadily forward out onto its surface.

Under the pressure of the engine's weight, stones and gravel cracked free from the sides of the embankment and rattled into the depths. On both sides the tank drivers watched in tense silence. Jan looked down from the height of the engine and could see the far edge approaching slowly; on either side there was only emptiness. He kept his eyes fixed on the edge and the engine centered in the very middle of the dike.

"He's over!" Otakar shouted into his radio. 'All cars tracking well. No subsidence visible."

Reaching the Road again was an easy task, once the tension of the crossing was behind. He pulled the train to the far side and ran forward until all of the cars were in the clear. Only then did he pull on his coldsuit and change over to the tank that had followed him.

"Let's get back to the gap," he ordered, then turned to the radio. "We're going to bring the trains over one at a time, slowly. I want only one train at a time on the new sections so we can reach it easily in case of difficulties. All right-start the second one now."

He was waiting at the edge of the chasm when the train appeared, clouds of dust and smoke billowing out from under its wheels. The driver kept his engine centered on the wheel marks of Jan's train on the embankment and crossed without difficulty and went on. The next train and the next crossed, and they came in a steady stream after that.

It was the thirteenth train that ran into trouble.

"Lucky thirteen," Jan said to himself as it appeared on the far edge. Re rubbed his sore eyes and yawned.

The engine came on and was halfway over when it started to tilt. Jan grabbed for the microphone, but before he could say anything there was a subsidence, and the engine tilted more and more in ma.s.sive slow motion.

- Then it was gone, suddenly. Over the edge and down, with the cars hurtling after it one after another in a string of death, crashing to the bottom in an immense bursting cloud of debris with car after car folded one after the other in a crushed ma.s.s of destruction.

No one came out of the wreck alive. Jan was one of the first who was lowered down at the end of a cable to search among the horribly twisted metal. Others joined him, and they searched in silence under the unending glare of the sun, but found nothing. In the end they abandoned the search, leaving the dead men entombed in the ruins. The embankment was repaired, strengthened, compact--ed. The other trains crossed without trouble and, once they were a.s.sembled on the Road, the return trek began.

No one spoke the thought aloud, but they all felt it. It had to be worth it, the corn, bringing it from pole to pole of the planet. The men's deaths had to mean something. The ships had to come. They were late-but they had to come.

They were familiar with the Road now, weary of it. The water crossing was made, the kilometers rolled by steadily, the sun shone through unending heat, and the trip went on. There were delays, breakdowns, and two cars were cannibalized for parts and left behind. And one more tank. The output of all the engines was dropping steadily so that they had to run at slower speed than usual.

It was not joy that possessed them when they came out of sunshine into the twilight, but rather more the end of a great weariness and the desire to rest at last. They were no more than ten hours away from their destination when Jan called a halt.

"Food and drinks," he said. "We need some kind of celebration."

They agreed on that, but it was a subdued party at best. Alzbeta sat next to Jan and, while no one there envied them, the men looked forward to the next day, and wives of their own who were waiting. They had been in touch with Southtown by radio, so the seven dead men in their metal tomb were known to those who were waiting.

"This is a party, not a wake," Otakar said. "Drink up your beer and I'll pour you another."

Jan drained his gla.s.s as instructed and held it out for a refill. "I'm thinking about the arrival," he said.

"We all are, but more so you and I," Alzbeta said, moving closer at the thought of separation. "She can't take you from me.

She did not have to be named. The Rradil, absent so long, was close again, ready to affect their lives.

"We are all with you," Otakar told them. "We were all witnesses at your wedding and were part of it.

The Family Reads may protest but there is nothing they can do. We've made them see reason before-we can do it again. s.e.m.e.nov will back us up."

"This is my fight," Jan said.

"Ours. It has been since we took over the engines and made them knuckle under for the second trip.

We can do that again if we have to."

"No, Otakar, I don't think so." Jan looked down the smooth length of the Road that vanished at the horizon. "We had something to fight for then. Something physical that affected all of us. The Rradil will try to cause trouble but Alzbeta and I will handle it."

'And me," s.e.m.e.nov said. "I will have to explain my actions, account for them. It is against the law..."

"The law as~wntten here," Jan said. 'A little work of fiction to keep the natives subdued and quiet."

"Will you tell them that, all the things you told me?"

"I certainly will. I'll tell the Heads and I'll tell every one else. The truth has to come out sometime. They probably won't believe it, but they'll be told."

After they slept they went on. Jan and Alzbeta had little rest, nor did they want it. They felt closer than they had ever been and their lovemaking had a frantic pa.s.sion to it. Neither spoke of it, but they feared for the future.

They had good cause. There was no reception, no crowds to welcome them. The men understood that.

They talked a bit, said good-bye to one another, then went to find their families. Jan and Alzbeta stayed on the train, watching the door. They did not have long to wait for the expected knock. There were four armed Proctors there.

"Jan Kulozik, you are under arrest....

"Under whose authority? For what reason?"

"You have been accused of murdering Proctor Cap-tain Ritters.p.a.ch."

"That can be explained, witnesse~"

"You will come with us to detention. Those are our orders. This woman is to be returned to her family at once."

"No!"

It was Alzbeta's cry of terror that roused Jan. He tried to go to her, protect her, but was shot at once. A weak charge, minimum setting for the energy gun, enough to stop him but not kill him.

He lay on the floor, conscious but unable to move, able only to watch as they dragged her out.

Seventeen.

It was obvious to Jan that his homecoming reception had been planned with infinite care and s.a.d.i.s.tic precision. The Hradil, of course. Once before she had had him arrested, but the job had been bungled.

Not this time. She had not revealed herself, but her careful touch was everywhere. No reception for their return, no crowds. No chance to unite his men and the others behind him. Divide and rule, most skillfully do~e. A murder charge, that was good; a man had been killed so the charge was certainly in order. And he had resisted arrest just to make herjob easier, just as she had undoubtedly a.s.sumed he would. She had out-thought him and she had won. She was out there drawing the web tight around him, while he sat in the carefully prepared cell. No rude storeroom this time, that might arouse sympathy, but proper quarters in one of the thick-walled permanent buildings. A barred, narrow slit of a window on the outside wall, sink and sanitary facilities, a comfortable bunk, reading matter, television-and a solid steel door with a lock on the other side. Jan lay on the bunk staring unseeingly at the ceiling, looking for a way out. He felt the eyes of the Proctor on him, staring in through the plasteel observation window in the wall, and he rolled to face away.

There would be a trial. If it were at all fair his plea of self-defense would have to be accepted. Five Family Reads would be the judges, that was the law, and all would have to agree on a sentence of guilty.

s.e.m.e.nov, one of the oldest Reads, would sit on the bench. There was a chance.

"You have a visitor," the guard said, his voice rasping from the speaker just below the window. Re moved aside and Alzbeta stood in his place.

Happy as he was to see her it was torture to press his hands to the cold plasteel surface, to see her fingers a close centimeter beyond his, yet to be unable to touch them.

"I asked to see you," she said. "I thought they would say no, but there was no trouble."

"Of course. No lynch parties this time. She learns by her mistakes. This time by the book, by the rule of law and order. Visitors allowed, why of course. Final verdict, guilty, of course.

"There has to be a chance. You will fight?"

"Don't I always?" He forced himself to smile, for her sake, and was answered by the slightest smile in return. "There is really no case. You witnessed the attack, were struck yourself, the other Proctors will have to agree with that under oath. They had all the clubs, I fought back when you were struck down.

Ritters.p.a.ch's death was accidental-they'll have to admit that. I'll defend myself, but there is one thing you can do to help me."

'Anything!"

"Get me a copy of the legal tapes that I can play on the TV here. I want to bone up on the niceties of the Book of the Law. Build a strong case.