The Outposter

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "It was still a sound idea to begin with," said Orv.

  "It never was sound. It was rotten. It was basically selfish," said Mark. "It was a plan with the essential unspoken purpose of making the Earth-City safe and sweet and un-crowded for an intellectual and political aris­tocracy that was immune to the lottery."

  Paul laughed softly.

  "A good thing Stein left," the young out-poster said. "He'd be calling you out right now, Mark, as too dangerous a radical to live."

  "If Stein would think it through, he'd real­ize he's as much of a radical as I am," Mark said. "The system victimizes outposters as much as it victimizes the colonists. That's not the point, though. The point is that it's because the system was selfish to begin with and therefore rotten in practice that it's finally beginning to smash itself up."

  "You said that to begin with," Paul said. "But you still haven't said how it's smashing up."

  "Simple," said Mark. "The Colonies aren't becoming self-supporting because the colonists didn't want to emigrate in the first place and because they're culls to begin with —adults only, twenty-five to eighty years old, most of them people who've already failed in the society they were born into. People like that are the material for colonizing new worlds? The Colonies aren't growing up to stand on their own, but they're multiplying every week. And the cost of supplying them, us, and the Navy is beginning to get out of hand."

  "Mark," said Orv, "I don't believe that. The Earth-City's not starving. It's a long way from starving."

  "No," said Paul. "There's maybe a thirty percent slack in production that can be taken out—or at least that's the way the figures ran when I left Earth six years ago—but then we'll be hitting about maximum output back there."

  "Thirty percent," said Orv. "That means we can add damn near a third again as many colonies before feeling pinched. That could take another thirty years to do. I don't see that as much of an emergency."

  "It won't take thirty years," said Mark. "We've got the Meda V'Dan helping to wreck the situation now."

  Orv opened his mouth, then closed it again. He sat back in his chair.

  "Eighteen years ago, when my parents were killed," Mark said, looking at all of them around the room, "the Meda V'Dan hit only an occasional small, two-outposter station like theirs with a single ship, so that the rest of the aliens could claim the raiders were renegades. How many Meda V'Dan ships did it take to cut you up here at Fourteen last month?"

  "Six ... six, God damn ..." husked Brot.

  "There you are," said Mark. "When they start hitting five-man stations, and with half fleets, the old excuse about renegades is get­ting stretched pretty well beyond believabili-ty. But you ought to know why they aren't worried about that as well as I do."

  He looked at Orv.

  "The Navy's no threat any more. Sure. Those fat-bellies ..." Orv took time to swear. "I'll go along with you on that, Mark."

  "All right, then, there it is," said Mark. "The Meda V'Dan hardly bother to trade anymore. They take what they want from Earth-pro­duced supplies at the Outpost Stations and keep the Navy quiet with gifts from the Un­known Races farther on—only the gifts aren't worth two percent of what it takes. The Navy takes the gifts and covers up, because it doesn't want to fight. And the responsible peo­ple back on Earth help with the cover-up be­cause they don't want the Navy to fight, either. Earth is beginning to get scared of the Meda V'Dan. It's only a matter of time before they find an excuse to haul the Navy back to the Solar System for their own protection and start paying flat-out tribute to the Meda V'Dan. And that's going to be the beginning of the end. Because once the Meda V'Dan start taking from Earth, direct, they'll suck her dry."

  "And," said Paul quietly, "we'll be left out here alone with the colonists—and no sup­plies."

  Mark looked at him.

  "If you were on my side from the first, Paul," he said, "why didn't you say so?"

  "I wanted to see what kind of argument you'd put up," Paul said. "Also, I wanted to be sure you could get through to Orv and Race, here, without me."

  Mark looked at the two older outposters.

  "Right, Mark," said Race, "we'll take your orders—for a while anyway—and see how things work out. Or maybe I shouldn't speak for Orv?"

  He looked across at the round-bodied man.

  "You can talk for me," said Orv. "I'm con­vinced. Only, what've you got in mind, Mark?"

  "To begin with, making this Outpost and this colony self-sufficient," said Mark. "No, more than just self-sufficient. Independent. The colonists I picked on the trip out should be here in a few days. Meanwhile, I want a general check of local colonists' records for special skills, then I'll have a talk with our Wild Bunch."

  Chapter Six

  The dozen or so colonists Mark had chosen from those aboard the Wombat came in by shuttle ship from the processing centre on Ganera VI two days later. Among them were Jarl Rakkal and Lily Betaugh. Also, the ex-Marine Orag Spal, Age Hammerschold, and the woman with the black wig who had made a hobby out of position astrophysics.

  It was with this woman, whose name was Maura Vols, that Mark concerned himself first. He took her on a private tour of one of the formerly mothballed heavy scout ships the Navy had leased Station Fourteen. The tour ended in the navigator's compartment.

  It was a tiny cubicle of a room, its walls packed with controls and metering devices.

  "Can you handle this equipment?" Mark asked her bluntly.

  She revolved about in the centre of the room, staring at her surroundings.

  "I don't understand ten percent of it," she said. "I used my husband's position tables and rental time on a commercial computer."

  But the tone of her voice was at odds with the defeatism of her words, and two spots of colour had come to life on her pale cheeks.

  "I could try to figure it all out, of course," she said. "Everything here has to tie in some­where with what I learned from Tom."

  "Do that, then," said Mark. "And when you can make it all work for you, check with the colony personnel records. Pick out the four people with the best mathematical back­ground for learning what you've got to teach. Then let me know, and I'll see they're assign­ed to you."

  He also took Orag Spal on a tour of the four ships, with particular attention to the two fixed million-pound rifles, mounted fore and aft in each.

  "First, are they workable?" Mark asked the ex-Marine. "Second, can you train men to handle them? And I mean handle them effec­tively, in action."

  "Oh, they'll work," Spal said. "The only thing is, either one of them could suck the engines on one of these little boats dry if you fire it when the craft's not on balance or power is off. As for training men to handle them, give me the right kind of man and time enough, I'll train him."

  "What's the right kind of man?"

  "Good reflexes. Endurance. Teachable. Young, by preference." Spal looked sideways and up at Mark. "But colonists being all over twenty-five—and most of that crowd I came out with were a good deal over—I suppose we'll have to skip that."

  "Not necessarily," said Mark. "We've got some second-and-third generation young peo­ple, particularly among a sort of semirebel group called the Wild Bunch, who might fit your requirements exactly. I'll be talking to them in a day or so."

  "Good," Spal said. "Meanwhile I'll get busy tearing these choppers down for close inspec­tion."

  Mark went off to turn his attention to Lily Betaugh. He had arranged for her and Jarl Rakkal to be housed at the Outpost itself, in­stead of in the nearest quadrant village with the other colonists. Now he took her to the library and records sections of the Outpost, which, being underground, had escaped the fire and destruction of the Meda V'Dan raid that had destroyed nearly all the other Out­post buildings except the Residence itself.

  "It's a fairly good general library," he said. "But more important, it has a hundred years of this colony's history, including a lot of general information over those years about the actions of the Meda V'Dan where
the Colo­nies were concerned. Find yourself the best ex-psychologist, ex-sociologist, and ex-anthro­pologist among those listed in the colonists' records, and get them to help you. I want a race profile of the Meda V'Dan as well as you can work it up, including probable prehis­toric evolution, present philosophy, and society."

  She nodded.

  "You realize, though," she said, "there's no reason we should come up with any more information than you could get by stepping over to that encyclopedia right now and coding for its section on the Meda V'Dan?"

  He smiled.

  "The information about the Meda V'Dan in that encyclopedia, or any encyclopedia back on Earth, is ninety percent guesswork, and ninety percent of that guesswork is wrong," he answered. "Study the colony's history, just as I said. You'll find out in a hurry that it and the encyclopedia don't correlate."

  He turned at last to Jarl Rakkal, since Age Hammerschold, the one ordinary-choice colo­nist he had picked from those aboard the Wombat, had been assigned to the colony's one semisuccessful furniture manufactory.

  "Here," he said, leading the big man, now dressed in colonist's green work slacks and shirt, into the half-rebuilt comptroller's build­ing behind the Residence, "this is where you'll be working. We lost a good share of the records, but duplicates of the copies sent to Sector Headquarters for this planet will be coming in to replace them in the next few days."

  Jarl looked around him, half amused, half puzzled.

  "But what am I supposed to do here?" he asked.

  "Set up profit-making systems for the colony, and see that the systems work," said Mark. "In particular, find me something right away that we can use to trade directly with the Meda V'Dan."

  Jarl stared at him.

  "You don't mean this?"

  "Didn't you tell me you came from a bank­ing family?" said Mark. "Weren't you the owner of a publishing business at the time you were lotteried?"

  "Of course," said Jarl. He stared for a mo­ment longer at Mark. "But, Mr. Ten ... look, can I call you Mark?"

  "Go ahead," said Mark.

  "All right, Mark, forgive me if it sounds like I'm telling you what to do, instead of the other way around," Jarl said. "But I started the most successful parti-fax publishing outlet the Earth-City's ever seen, from scratch. At the time the lottery got me, I had nearly a hundred and fifty million repro outfits in as many homes and offices—nearly a billion cus­tomers, by estimate, making up their daily reading from my broadcast items. I did all that in six years—with plenty of time out for ki practice and everything else I wanted to do. Look at me. I may not be able to handle one of your outposter professionals, but I'll bet that out of ten thousand or so colonists you've got attached to this station, there's not a man who can stay in a locked room with me for three minutes and come out on his feet."

  He paused, staring at Mark.

  "And you still want to use me as a sort of glorified bookkeeper?"

  "If that's the way you want to describe it," said Mark, "yes."

  "But—" Rakkal broke off. "Forgive me again if I sound offensive or patronizing—

  God knows I'm in no position to patronize anyone now, let alone you—but believe me, this one time I'm being completely honest with you when I say you can't mean to waste the sort of raw material I am on a job like that. I'm a few years older than you, and may­be it takes a few more years than you've got to realize what someone like me, with my experi­ence, could do for you. For example, I gather you might be trying to actually use those scout ships you got from the Navy. Fine, that's the way I like to think myself. Now, I've piloted civilian craft almost that size—"

  "No," said Mark. He met Rakkal's eyes squarely. "You're too ambitious. I wouldn't trust you to operate a tractor out of my sight."

  "But you're putting the whole economy of this Outpost and colony in my hands?"

  "Exactly," said Mark.

  He went toward the door of the building, which was at the moment only a door by cour­tesy—a raw, new frame of wood, open to the outer air on two sides and overhead. Jarl called after him.

  "What if I deliberately mess things up?"

  "If the colony starves, you do, too," said Mark. "Remember, find me something I can trade to the Meda V'Dan—do that right away."

  He went out.

  It took the rest of the week to round up the Wild Bunch from their various caves and forests and the homes of relatives in the vil­lages of the colony's four sections who were not supposed to be giving the nonworkers food and shelter, but were. However, the morn­ing finally came when Mark spoke to about a hundred and twenty of the bunch, mostly men dressed in everything from tattered green work clothes to animal skins, in the landing area surrounded by the four heavy Navy scout ships.

  "All right," said Mark. He was standing up on the front seat of a ground car to be seen better by them all. "Each one of you knows why you're here. You're the colony mav­ericks, and I'm not going to waste much time on you. This afternoon I'm going to start going around to the quadrant villages, telling the rest of the people what this colony's going to do. You here are getting an advanced brief­ing because the bare chance exists that you can be particularly useful—if you want to be." They looked back at him. Their faces were not encouraging.

  "I'm going to make this colony indepen­dent," said Mark. "Not just independent of supplies from Earth, but independent of Earth, Navy Base, and even the other Colonies in our sector on this planet. But the change-over's not going to be easy. We'll probably go hungry this winter, for one thing. I don't think we'll have to fight the Navy, but we'll prob­ably have to fight the Meda V'Dan—and for once this means that you colonists are going to be in on the fighting. It's not going to be just the outposters alone."

  "Why should we?" asked an unidentified voice from the crowd. Paul and Orv, standing by, with thumbs hooked in their gun belts, ran their eyes over the crowd, but it was impos­sible to say who had spoken.

  "To make that better life you all claim you've been after," replied Mark. "You're our rebels. I'm giving you a chance to lead the re­bellion of the whole colony against the system we've been trapped by out here for nearly a hundred years. We're going to become a real colony—self-supporting and self-protecting. But I'm not forcing any of you to go along with this unless you want to. Those who aren't interested can go back to wherever you were when we found you, but it's only fair to warn you that if you've been depending on relatives, you may not find them as generous, once things start to change around here."

  He pointed to the scout ships.

  "I need younger men to man these ships," he said. "I need older men to help me and the other outposters lead the rest of the colonists into the changes we have to make. I can't offer any of you anything for this—except that once we get the changes made, there won't be any distinction between us as colonists and out-posters anymore. We'll all be colonists of Abruzzi Fourteen together, and whoever can lead us best will be our leaders."

  He paused. They looked at him in silence.

  "Well, then," he said, "it's up to you. Those who want no part of it, take off now. Those who want to lead or enlist in the Abruzzi Colony Space Navy, gather around the car here."

  The crowd slowly began to move. It broke up into two movements, a movement of per­haps a third of those there toward the ground car and a dispersal of the rest in all direc­tions.

  "Good," said Mark, for though the large majority of those present were leaving, almost all of those under twenty were among the group that was staying. "All right. Paul and Orv will list you and what you volunteer to do. Those who want to work with the scout ships will find an ex-Marine named Orag Spal in that ship to the right, there. He'll start training you. The rest of you follow me up to the Residence so that I can explain the indi­vidual jobs that need to be done, and then you'll join me in my swing around the villages to talk to the rest of the colonists this after­noon—"

  The chiming of the phone in the ground car interrupted him; he reached down to pick it up.

&
nbsp; "Mark," he said into it.

  Brot's labouring voice spoke back to him.

  "Mark ... send Orv, Paul, here."

  "Send Orv and Paul?" Mark frowned at the phone. "Brot, what're you doing, calling out like this? What do you want Orv and Paul for?"

  "Just... send ..."

  The phone clicked out of communication. Mark looked over at the other two outposters and found their troubled glance upon him.

  "What's this?" Mark asked. "Brot's calling for both of you. Do either of you know anything about this?"

  Paul's face was sombre.

  "It's my fault," he said.

  "No," said Orv. "It was all three of us who decided to do it."

  "But it was my idea," said Paul. "Mark, it must be Stein up at the Residence. I thought if he had a look at how things were going, he might change his mind. I asked him to come back out from Sector Headquarters to look, before his transfer request went through. Race was to show him around while you were busy with the bunch, here—"

  "Orv," said Mark, dropping down into the seat behind the controls of the ground car, "you take care of them here. Paul, come on with me."

  Paul took three strides and a running jump to join him in the ground car. Mark set the vehicle in motion, swung it about on the grass, and sent it sliding swiftly toward the Residence, only a few hundred yards away.

  Chapter Seven

  They burst into Brot's bedrom to see Race ly­ing still on the carpet, Stein behind him, standing with his back against a wall and his arms crossed on his chest, hands on opposite shoulders. In the bed, half sitting, Brot held a gun in his one hand, resting the butt on his knee, the barrel pointed at Stein.