Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "Child?" said Jorden.

  "Yes. You will be provided with a wife and three children. One of these will die, and you will react as if it were your own flesh. Your wife will oppose your staying, and demand a return to Earth. We will throw at you every force available to tear down your determination to build a colony. We shall test in every possible way the validity of your decision to go. Do you still wish to go through with it?"

  Jorden's grin was somewhat fainter. He took a deep breath as he nodded slowly. "Yes, I'll go through with it. I think it's what I want."

  * * * * *

  When Ashby finally returned alone to the office, Miss Haslam had gone home. He put in a call anyway for Dr. Bonnie Nathan. She usually remained somewhere in the laboratory until quite late, even when not assigned to a test.

  In a few minutes her voice came over the phone. "John? What can I do for you?"

  "I thought I could let you off for a few days," said Ashby, "but we've got another one that's come up rather suddenly." He told her briefly about Mark Jorden. "It's useless, but I don't want him running to the Commission right now, so we'll put him through. You'll be the wife. We'll use Program Sixty Eight, except that we'll accelerate it."

  "Accelerate--!"

  "Yes. It won't hurt him any. Whatever happens we can wipe up afterwards. This is simply a nuisance and I want it out of the way as quickly as possible. After that--perhaps I can give you those few days I promised you. O.K.?"

  "It's all right with me," said Bonnie. "But an accelerated Sixty Eight--"

  * * * * *

  They stood on a low hillock overlooking the ninety acres of bottom land salvaged from the creek grass. Mark Jorden shaded his eyes and squinted critically over the even stand of green shoots emerging from the bronzed soil. Germination had been good in spite of the poor planting time. The chance of getting a crop out was fair. If they didn't they'd be eating shoe plastic in another few months.

  The ten year old boy beside him clutched his hand and edged closer as if there were something threatening him from the broad fields. "Isn't there any way at all for Earth to send us food," he said, "if we don't get a crop?"

  "We have to make believe Earth doesn't exist, Roddy," said Jorden. "We couldn't even let them know we need help, we're so far away." He gripped the boy's shoulders solidly in his big hands and drew him close. "We aren't going to need any help from Earth. We're going to make it on our own. After all, what would they do on Earth if they couldn't make it? Where would they go for outside help?"

  "I know," said the boy, "but there are so many of them they can't fail. Here, there's only the few of us."

  Jorden patted his shoulder gently again as they started moving toward the rough houses a half mile away. "That makes it all the easier for us," he said. "We don't have to worry about the ones who won't cooperate. We can't lose with the setup we've got."

  It was harder for Roddy. He remembered Earth, although he had been only four when they left. He still remembered the cities and the oceans and the forests he had known so briefly, and was cursed with the human nostalgia for a past that seemed more desirable than an unknown, fearful future.

  Of the other children, Alice had been a baby when they left, and Jerry had been born during the trip. They knew only Serrengia and loved its wild, uncompromising rigor. They spent their abandoned wildness of childhood in the nearby hills and forests. But with Roddy it was different. Childhood seemed to have slipped by him. He was moody, and moved carefully in constant fear of this world he would never willingly call home. Jorden's heart ached with longing to instill some kind of joy into him.

  "That looks like Mr. Tibbets," said Roddy suddenly, his eyes on the new log house.

  "I believe you're right," said Jorden. "It looks like Roberts and Adamson with him. Quite a delegation. I wonder what they want."

  The colony consisted of about a hundred families, each averaging five members. Originally they had settled on a broad plateau at some distance from the river. It was a good location overlooking hundreds of miles of desert and forest land. Its soil was fertile and the river water was lifted easily through the abundant power of the community atomic energy plant which had been brought from Earth.

  Three months ago, however, the power plant had been destroyed in a disastrous explosion that killed almost a score of the colonists. Crops for their next season's food supply were half matured and could not be saved by any means available.

  The community was broken into a number of smaller groups. Three of these, composed of fifteen families each, moved to the low lands along the river bank and cleared acreage for new crops in a desperate hope of getting a harvest before the season ended. They had not yet learned enough of the cycle of weather in this area to predict it with much accuracy.

  Mark Jorden was in charge of one of the farms and the elected leader of the village in which he lived.

  Tibbets was an elderly man from the same village. In his middle sixties, he presented a puzzle to Jorden as to why he had been permitted to come. Roberts and Adamson were from the settlements farther down the river.

  Jorden felt certain of the reason for their visit. He didn't want to hear what they had to say, but he knew he might as well get it over with.

  They hailed him from the narrow wooden porch. Jorden came up the steps and shook hands with each. "Won't you come in? I'm sure Bonnie can find something cool to drink."

  Tibbets wiped his thin, wrinkled brow. "She already has. That girl of yours doesn't waste any time being told what to do. It's too bad some of the others can't pitch in the way Bonnie does."

  Jorden accepted the praise without comment, wondering if no one else at all were aware of the hot, violent protests she sometimes poured out against him because of the colony.

  "Come in anyway," Jorden said. "I have to go back to the watering in a little while, but you can take it easy till then." He led the way into the log house.

  Their homes on the plateau had been decent ones. With adequate power they had made lumber and cement, and within a year of their landing had built a town of fine homes. Among those who had been forced to abandon them, no one was more bitter than Bonnie. "You're no farmer," she said. "Why can't those who are be the ones to move?"

  Now, when he came into the kitchen, she was tired, but she tried to smile as always at her pleasure in seeing him again. He couldn't imagine what it would be like not having her to welcome him from the fields.

  "I'll get something cool for you and Roddy," she said. "Would you gentlemen like another drink?"

  When they were settled in the front room Tibbets spoke. "You know why we've come, Mark. The election is only a couple of months away. We can't have Boggs in for another term of governor. You've got to say you'll run against him."

  "As I told you last time, Boggs may be a poor excuse for the job, but I'd be worse. He's at least an administrator. I'm only an engineer--and more recently a farmer."

  "We've got something new, now," said Tibbets, his eyes suddenly cold and meaningful.

  "The talk about his deliberately blowing up the power plant? Talk of that kind could blow up the whole colony as well. Boggs may have his faults but he's not insane."

  "We've got proof now," said Tibbets. "It's true. Adamson's got the evidence. He got one of the engineers who escaped the blast to talk. It's one of them who were supposed to have been killed. He's so scared of Boggs he's still hiding out. But he's got the proof and those who are helping him know it's true."

  "Tibbets is right," said Adamson earnestly. "We know it's true. And something like that can't stay hidden. It's got to be brought out if we're going to make the colony survive. You can't just shut your eyes to it and say, 'Good old Boggs would never do a thing like that.'"

  Jorden's eyes were darker as he spoke in low tones now, hoping Roddy would not be listening in the kitchen. "Suppose it is true. Why would Boggs do such an insane thing?"

  "Because he's an insane man," said Tibbets. "That's the obvious answer. He wants to destroy the colony and l
imit its growth. He was satisfied to come here and be elected governor and run the show. He saw it as means of becoming a two-bit dictator over a group of subservient colonists. It hasn't turned out that way. He found a large percentage of engineers and scientists who would have none of his nonsense.

  "He saw the group becoming something bigger than himself. He had to cut it down to his own size. He's willing to destroy what he can't possess, but he believes that by reducing us to primitive status he can keep us in line. In either case the colony loses."

  "If what you say is true--if it's actually true," Jorden said, his eyes suddenly far away, "we've got to fight him--"

  "Then we can count on you?"

  "Yes--you can count on me."

  * * * * *

  He stood in the doorway watching the departure of the three men, but he was aware of Bonnie behind him. She rushed to him as he turned, and put her face against his chest.

  "Mark--you can't do it! Boggs will kill you. This is no concern of ours. We don't belong to Maintown any more. It's their business up there. I'd go crazy if anything happened to you. You've got to think of the rest of us!"

  "I am thinking," said Mark. He raised her chin so he could look into her eyes. "I'm thinking that we are going to live here the rest of our lives, and so are the children. If the story about Boggs is true, we're all concerned. We wouldn't be down here if the power plant hadn't been destroyed. We'd be living in our good home in Maintown. Would you expect me to let Boggs get away with this without raising a hand to stop him?"

  "Yes--I would," said Bonnie, "because there is nothing anyone can do. You know he has Maintown in the palm of his hand. He's screened out every ruffian and soured colonist in the whole group and they'll do anything he says. You can't fight them all, Mark. I won't let you."

  "It won't be me alone," said Jorden. "If it develops into a fight the majority of the colony will be with us. Earth will be with us. Boggs will be facing the results of the whole two billion year struggle it took to make man what he now is."

  * * * * *

  In the lounge off the lab cafeteria, Ashby indulged in a late coffee knowing he wouldn't sleep anyway. Across the table Bonnie ate sparingly of a belated supper.

  "The threat of having to fight Boggs didn't give him much of a scare," said Ashby thoughtfully.

  "It'll take a lot more than a bogey man like Boggs to scare Mark," said Bonnie. "You've got yourself a bigger quantity of man than you bargained for."

  "This might turn out to be more interesting than we thought. I wish there were more time to spend on him. But Merton called up again today to verify the ultimatum I told you about. We produce colonists by the time Hull Four is complete or they turn the personnel problem over to Winthrop--even after they saw Carnahan go to pieces before their eyes."

  "Has it ever occurred to you," said Bonnie slowly, "that we might just possibly be off on the wrong foot? How do you know that any of the colonists of Earth's history could have stood up to the demands of Serrengia? I'm beginning to suspect that the Mayflower's passenger list would have folded quite completely under these conditions. They had it comparatively easy. So did most other successful colonists."

  "Yes--?" said Ashby.

  "Maybe they succeeded in spite of being rebels. If they could have come to the new lands without the pressure of flight, but in complete freedom of action, they might have made an even greater success."

  "But why would they have come at all, then?"

  "I don't know. There must be another motive capable of impelling them. In great feats of exploration, creation--other human actions similar to colonization--"

  "There are no other human actions similar to colonization," said Ashby. "Surely you realize we're dealing with something unique here, Bonnie!"

  "I know--all I'm trying to say is there could be another valid motive. I think Mark Jorden's got it. There's something different about this test, and I think you ought to look in on it yourself."

  "What's so different about him?"

  "He doesn't act like the rest. He hasn't any apparent reason for being here."

  Ashby looked at the girl closely. She was one of his top staff members and had been with him from the beginning. The incredible strain of working day after day in the test pits was showing its effects, he thought.

  "I shouldn't have let you get started on this one," he said. "You're fagged out. Maybe it would be better to erase what we've done and start over, so that you can drop out."

  She shook her head with a quickness that surprised him. "I want to finish it, and see how Mark turns out. I'm so used to working with the bitter, anti-social ones that it's a relief to have someone who is halfway normal and gregarious. I want to be around when we find out why he's here."

  "Especially if he should go all the way to the end. But he won't--"

  * * * * *

  Ashby was genuinely concerned about Bonnie's condition when he looked in on her the next morning. The strain on her face was real beyond any matter of make-up or acting. He wondered just why she should be giving in to it now. Bonnie was well trained, as were all the staff members who worked in the test pits. The emotional conflicts mocked up there were not allowed to penetrate very deeply into their personal experience, yet it looked now as if Bonnie had somehow lost control of the armor to protect against such invasion. She seemed to be living the circumstances of the test program almost as intensely as Mark Jorden was doing.

  Such a condition couldn't be permitted to continue, but he was baffled by it. Her physical and emotional check prior to the test had not shown her threshold to be this low. Evidently there was emotional dynamite buried somewhere in the situation they had manufactured.

  Through the observation lens of the test pit Ashby watched Jorden begin a tour of the villages, making a quiet investigation of the situation, which he had all but ignored until it was forced to his attention. Jorden spent an hour with Adamson, listening carefully to the atomic engineer's story, and then was led to the hiding place of the engineer who claimed direct evidence that Boggs had instigated the explosion at the power plant.

  As Adamson left them, Ashby signaled him through the tiny button buried in the skin behind his right ear. "This is Ashby," he said. "How does it look? Do you think he's going to tackle Boggs?"

  "No question of that." Adamson's words came back, although he made no movement of his mouth or throat. "Jorden is one of these people with a lot of inertia. It takes a big push to get him moving, but when he really gets rolling there isn't much that can stop him, either. You're really going to have to put the pressure on to find his cracking point."

  "I'm afraid we're likely to find Bonnie's first. There's something about this that's hitting her too hard. Do you know what it is?"

  "No," said Adamson. "I thought I noticed it a little yesterday, too. Maybe we ought to check her out."

  "She insists on completing the program. And I'd like to go all the way with Jorden. I'm becoming rather curious about him. Keep an eye on Bonnie and let me know what you think at the end of the shift."

  "I'll do that," said Adamson.

  * * * * *

  Jorden followed his guide for more than a mile beyond the last village on the bank of the river. There, in a willow hidden cave in the clay bank, he found James, the atomic engineer who was reported to know of Boggs' attack on the power plant.

  "I told him you were coming," said Adamson, "but I'm going to leave. You can make out better if you're alone with him. He's bitter, but he isn't armed, and he'll go along with you if you don't push him too hard."

  Jorden watched Adamson disappear along the bank in the direction from which they had come. He had a feeling of utter ridiculousness. This wasn't what they had come for! They had come to build an outpost of human beings, to establish man's claim in this sector of the Universe. And they were ending in a petty conflict worthy of the politics of centuries before, back on Earth.

  His face took on a harder set as he approached the mouth of the cave and whistled the sign
al notes that Adamson had taught him. If the establishment of the colony demanded this kind of fight then he was willing to enter the battle. He had not dedicated the remainder of his life to a goal only to abandon it to a petty tyrant like Boggs.

  A bearded face peered cautiously through parted willows and James' voice spoke. "You're Jorden? I suppose by now everybody in the villages knows where I'm hiding out. I'm the world's prize fool for letting this parade come past my place. Come in and I'll tell you what I know. If you help get Boggs it will be worth anything it costs me."

  Jorden followed the man through the screening willows to the mouth of the cave. There the two of them squatted on rocks opposite each other.

  "I remember you now," said James. "You set up the electric plant when we were assembling the pile, didn't you? I thought we'd worked together."

  Jorden nodded, hoping James would go on, remembering Adamson's caution not to push him too hard, but the engineer seemed to have nothing more to say. He rubbed a hand forcibly against his other arm and looked beyond the mouth of the cave to the slow moving river.

  "This business concerning Boggs' destruction of the plant--how did it start?" said Jorden finally.

  "How does anything of that kind start?" said James. "Boggs came to some of us and remarked in casual conversation what a shame it would be if the colony were to duplicate all over again the mistakes that Earth have made during the past thousands of years. A few of us were sympathetic with that thought--it would indeed be a shame. Some of the engineers thought that this was the perfect chance to set up a truly scientific society. They didn't agree that Boggs was the ideal leader, but he was the leader and the obvious one to work through. They all became convinced that a rapid industrialization and a highly technological society built upon the old rusty foundations would be most difficult to overcome in building a society on truly adequate sociological principles. You can take it from there."

  Yes, he could, Jorden thought. Anybody could take it from there. It was the oldest lie that men of power and position had ever concocted. Why had those particular colonists fallen for it?