To Build a World Page 3

  “Why, of course. The Lunar area equals a fourth of Earth’s land surface—”

  Cocktails arrived. Maura smiled and clinked glasses. “I’m afraid you’re an idealist, Don. But welcome nevertheless.”

  The martini was cold and pungent on his tongue. He studied the menu with little comprehension. “I must admit our eating habits are barbaric on Venus,” he surrendered, “and the Corporation is more interested in nourishing our bodies than our souls. What do you suggest?”

  “By Sol, a man who doesn’t have to pretend masculinity! Let me see . . . Whale teriyaki looks good. With that we’d probably want consomme Mexique, filet of mahimahi, tossed salad—and may I be greedy and have ice cream with that wonderful Martian herb sauce for dessert?”

  “Uh, champagne’s right, isn’t it?” He selected one by the simple criterion of price and gave his order.

  Appetizers were set down. Pate de foie gras, smoked oysters, marinated artichokes and thousand-year eggs were separate adventures for Sevigny. “A whole dimension of living,” he exulted. “How can I thank you for programming me?”

  “Show me around your planet in exchange—if I can ever promote a ticket there.”

  “You must. Frontiers don’t happen often in history. The Moon’s more accessible, true. But it won’t have breathable air for a long time.”

  “If ever.”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “Why are you do doubtful?”

  “Oh . . . one hears so many things. Like, well, doesn’t Earth’s magnetic field shield us from a lot of radiation? And the Moon hasn’t got any to speak of.”

  “Nor Venus, much. Given. enough atmosphere, that doesn’t matter. Our atmosphere amounts to a good bit more than yours.”

  “But the Moon’s so small! How can it hold onto gases?”

  “Loss to space isn’t that fast. They won’t have to worry about it for an estimated half million years. As for atmospheric shielding, the Moon actually has an advantage over Earth. So low a gravitational field makes a correspondingly lower gradient. A surface pressure equal to three-fourths of Earth sea level, which is what’s planned, means that there will be a measurable concentration at altitudes which correspond to open space here. Charged particles won’t penetrate deep, and actinic rays will be absorbed.”

  “I’ve heard, though, that there isn’t enough gas to be had.”

  “The selenologists swear there is. Not as such, naturally. As buried ice: water of crystallization; carbon, nitrogen and sulfur compounds released when minerals—and the organics left over from the original nebula—break down. What we’re doing, actually, is using deep wells and atomic bombs to start vulcanism. The same process that gave all the smaller planets their atmospheres. Only we’re going to tickle Luna 90 much that everything will happen several orders of magnitude faster than it did in nature.”

  “But suppose your figures are wrong?”

  “That’s been thought of. It won’t be hard to deflect some comets into collision orbits, if necessary, and they’re mostly big balls of frozen gas.” Sevigny chuckled. “One way or another, the final stages ought to be quite a show—from this safe, comfortable distance!”

  “And what will you have when you’re finished?” she argued. “Poisons?”

  She can’t he that ignorant. Can she? Must simply he making conversation. Letting me show off my male knowledge. Fine.

  “Venus didn’t have anything else,” he reminded her. “Nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and a certain amount of water in the clouds. But the photosynthesizing algae grew exponentially once they’d been seeded in the upper atmosphere. They released oxygen; then they kept sinking to lower levels where it was so hot they decomposed into carbon and water. The greenhouse effect dropped off until temperatures went below a hundred; and for ten years it rained without pause. Given liquid water, the Urey process operated, raw rock consumed still more CO and at last there was air that men could breathe.” He sipped from his glass. “Solar protons and ultraviolet radiation helped also, especially in breaking down hydrogen compounds. In other words, a weak magnetic field is an asset to the terraformer.”

  “Do you plan the same thing for Luna, then?”

  “What else? Different in many details, of course. Luna isn’t identical with Venus or ancient Earth. Right now the air we’ve already given it is a lot like Mars’. Radiation’s been releasing oxygen from water; the free hydrogen goes up and the free oxygen promptly attacks methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. This yields carbon dioxide, free nitrogen, sulfites and more water to split. But once the atmosphere is thick enough—anyhow that part is quite well understood, what has to be done. Far more so than the present stage of operations.” He thought of Decker, buried under the ruins of his own, Don Sevigny’s, well, and his fingers tightened on the stem of his glass.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He drank. “I was reminded of an accident we had recently. Rather not talk about that.”

  There was a slight bustle as a pair of men were shown to a table close by. Sevigny couldn’t help gawking. They were in ordinary clothes, but if the pictures in the school anthropology text hadn’t lied, one was an Arab and one from India—He recollected his manners. Besides, Maura was prettier.

  “I hear rumors about your having trouble,” she was saying. “That could get many people angry, the ones who claim the project has already cost more than it’s worth.”

  “I can’t understand that attitude,” he said, and congratulated himself on how neatly he could dodge the question of accident rates. “Seems to me a whole new world is worth a billion times any conceivable price you’ll have to pay.”

  “How many people will get any use out of that world? That’s becoming a political issue too. They say only the rich will be able to live there.”

  “Pure demagoguery, my lady. The Corporation charter—” Sevigny was glad now that his chief had made him read it before departure—“says that one fourth of the Moon is reserved for recreational purposes, and that there’s to be adequate housing at decent prices for all residents. Who’ll make a sizeable number, you realize. The Moon has rich mineral resources. Once it’s habitable, those will really be exploited.”

  He began to plagiarize other literature that had been given him: “Also, the project develops sciences and technologies which’ll be useful elsewhere. As an example of international cooperation, it strengthens the Commonwealth. The fact that a great deal of the Moon will be left in woods and meadows is important; Earth has very little greenscape any more. And . . . not altogether pleasant to think about . . . but nuclear weapons do exist and times of trouble may come back again. The more worlds colonized, the better the race’s chances of lasting.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” she said merrily, “and here comes the soup. So let’s talk about other things. Like yourself.”

  “You’re a more interesting subject . . . Maura.”

  “Very well. We’ll take turns!” Clan culture discouraged individual boasting, but Sevigny found it remarkably easy to glamorize himself. He didn’t even need to embroider his reminiscences much. She had never hunted, camped in a forest or a desert, trucked fish to a new ocean, built a dam, fought a battle—And then he found that he had never gone submarining or seen an opera or been to—

  “Ti’ki!”

  The wine glass dropped from his hand and shattered.

  “Don,” Maura cried low, “what’s the matter?”

  He snatched the vibrating little box from his pocket and laid it to his ear. “R-r-rik-ik-ik, tPki, ti’ki, ch!”

  Oscar the dirrel had no words for a great concrete chamber five levels below ground, or a ramp leading out, or a truck with a hoist. But it had to be that. Men come, four men come, machine, fright, chase Oscar, thing-Oscar-w at c h go, Don, come, ti’ki, ki, ki!

  Sevigny was half out of the room before Maura screamed.

  The headwaiter, a blurred shape, a hand to shake off, “Can I help you, sir?”

  “No! Emergency!” The
engineer burst from among the tables and plunged to the elevator.

  It wasn’t there. He stabbed the button again and again, while Oscar chittered fear and rage from the overhead pipes where he crouched.

  Maura reached him. He saw her across a quivering immenseness, hardly felt her hands drag at him. The tears didn’t register either. “Don, Don, what’s wrong? Are you banzai? Please come back—”

  The elevator door opened. He shoved her aside. “I may be back in a while,” he got out.

  Another shape brushed past her. The man was slender, chocolate-skinned, full lips curved very slightly upward. “May I?” he said, and entered the cage.

  Sevigny recognized the Indian from the table near his. He tried to thrust him out, and grasped air. The man had dodged like a bird. “Emergency,” Sevigny snarled once more.

  “Perhaps I can help,” said the Indian blandly.

  No time to waste on him. Sevigny punched for subfive. The door closed on Maura. Her face had lost its strickenness.

  Weight decreased. “May I suggest notifying the hotel detective?” the Indian said.

  Jarred from his haste, Sevigny made himself think about that. It hadn’t occurred to him; the clans took care of their own. “Will you do so?” he asked. “And the, uh, city police. There’s a theft being committed in sub-501.” He took his gun from the holster. “I’ll get out and see what I can do. You go straight back to the lobby and holler for troops.”

  “Is the matter worth such a risk to yourself?”

  A man of Clan Woodman was entrusted with that crate. “Yes.”

  “As you will. If you wonder, sir, why I left my own dinner to accompany you, may I present myself as a physician.” The narrow dark head bent in a slight bow. “Dr. Krishnamurti Lai Gupta of Benares, at your service. I was afraid you might have been taken ill.”

  Rik-ik-chik-ri-ch, Don, come, fast come, screamed the box that Sevigny held.

  He stuck it back into his pocket. The elevator slowed. Sub-5 flashed onto the indicator panel. “Stand by to raise her,” Sevigny said. The door glided open. He sprang into a bare, gray, coldly lit corridor.

  Something stung him between the shoulders. He whirled with a curse. Gupta stood in the cage, a tiny flat pistol in one hand. He was still smiling. Sevigny’s world dissolved in surf and darkness. He tried to raise his gun and couldn’t. Its clatter when it hit the floor reached him as a remote and tiny thud. His knees gave way and he fell on top erf it. Then he ceased to be.

  IV

  Awareness was first of the same countenance, hovering above him with the same friend-expression. He struggled to sit up and Gupta stepped back. This time he held a hypodermic needle.

  Crazily through the fogs Sevigny remembered Aarons bent over Leong while the volcano drowned Decker. Because someone had bombarded the keystone of a machine with X-rays . . . Rage rose in him, so strong that it had a taste. Adrenalin joined the counter-drug in his bloodstream. Strength and senses rushed forth. He bounded to his feet.

  “Stop right there,” said a man across the room. He was the Arab who had been with Gupta. His eyes were the most intent that Sevigny had ever seen. The gun in his hand reined the Cytherean to a halt.

  “That’s better,” said the third man. He was sumptuously clad, in gold and scarlet that contrasted with Gupta’s white simplicity and the gunman’s somberness; at the end of middle age, he was bald, wattled and pot-gutted. But his jaw was like a ram and he spoke in a young voice. “Mama mia! When did a person come out from under a sleepy jolt this damn fast, Kreesho?”

  “Rarely, Mr. Baccioco,” said Gupta. “But he is both strong and excited. Please relax, clansman. We have no intention of harming you.”

  A door opened. Maura came through. Sevigny paid more immediate attention to Oscar, who zoomed past her, went up his tunic in one streak, hugged him around the neck and unburdened his own soul so noisily that nothing else could be heard at that moment.

  Sevigny got the dirrel quieted down at length, with much stroking and reassuring. Most of him, meanwhile, studied the surroundings. He was in a rich man’s room, which seemed to be part of a suite. He couldn’t identify the pictures which glowed from the walls, but they were likeliest totirepros of medieval European masters. The windows were blanked out, and no sound penetrated from beyond. A clock said 2345.

  Maura had settled into a relaxes Her gown was changed for slacks and blouse. The effect remained explosive. She smoked a cigarette in short hard puffs and did not return Sevigny’s protracted stare.

  Gupta sat quite at ease on a couch upholstered in what Sevigny thought must be genuine leather; cheap on Venus, but he’d been told that an Earthman might go through life without seeing any. The older man, Baccioco, prowled back and forth, hands tightly clasped behind his back. The Arab waited in a corner, weapon now pointed at the floor but eyes never leaving Sevigny.

  “Well, are his fears allayed, the little fellow?” Gupta said. “Fine, fine. You will. I hope, Clansman Sevigny, take his presence as earnest of our good intentions. When you were brought unconscious into the storeroom and laid in the truck—what else could we do?—your pet stormed down from his hiding place and fell upon you. I was forced to anesthetize him too, his distress was so noisy, but had not the heart to leave him behind.”

  “Thanks for that,” Sevigny said curtly.

  “Please do not be too discomfited at your present situation—”

  “Mainly I’m disgusted. With myself.” Sevigny stared so long at Maura that she had to turn her face to him. “I walked right into the oldest trap in the universe, didn’t I?” He spat at her feet.

  “Maron!” Baccioco gestured indignantly. “Is that a decent way to behave? Watch yourself!”

  “We must make allowances, sir,” Gupta soothed him.

  Maura bit her lip. “We never meant to hurt you, Don,” she said in a flat voice. “I was only supposed to keep you busy till the thing had been removed. And as long afterward as possible. I wish it had gone that way.

  I was honestly enjoying your company.”

  “How did you learn?” the Arab demanded.

  “Shut up, Rashid,” Baccioco said.

  “Well, it is a question we meant to ask,” Gupta said. “Do you mind telling us, clansman?”

  They don’t know Oscar can talk to me. That might be a hole card. Barely might. Sevigny held his face rigid and shrugged. “I put a scanner among the overhead pipes, connected to a microcaster. You doubtless found the receiver in my tunic.”

  Baccioco studied him. Silence grew, under the white fluorescents, among the thick red drapes, until the slither when Rashid shuffled his feet was startlingly loud. A whiff of Maura’s cigarette drifted to Sevigny, acrid when he remembered the perfume earlier. Without his gun he felt naked, lopsided; and Oscar’s warm weight on his shoulder was not much comradeship.

  “Well,” Baccioco said, “that sounds reasonable. I will have a man search for your scanner tomorrow, to make quite certain. As for now, though, here we are, no? You don’t want to be here and we don’t want to have you here. What to do?”

  “I suggest we all begin by reducing our tensions,” Gupta said in his mild fashion. “Maura, would you be so good as to fetch coffee? Or would anyone prefer something stronger?”

  There was no reply. The girl rose and left the room. Her head drooped a little.

  “Do be seated, gentlemen,” Gupta went on. Baccioco snorted but threw himself into an armchair. After a moment, Sevigny took another. Rashid remained standing in his corner.

  “We should show our guest the courtesy of further identifying ourselves,” Gupta said. “Signor Baccioco is—”

  “No!” the Italian broke in.

  “Yes,” Gupta responded. “Please consider. If Clansman Sevigny remembers your name at all, or even your appearance, he need only ask the first alert person he meets in order to be told that Ercole Baccioco is chairman of the board of Eureclam S.A. You must not be so modest about your reputation, sir . . . Having inevitably revealed that much
, I trust I can do no harm in describing our friend Rashid Gamal ibn Ayith as a representative, in our little organization, of the Fatimite Brotherhood. As for myself, I am actually a physician, but may have gained a small prominence through my activity in the Conservationist Party of my native land.”

  A corporation head, a politician and some kind of religious fanatic. The girl, I suppose, a hireling, like those workers who removed the force unit. What are they doing together tonight? As Sevigny’s muscles tautened, Oscar bristled on his lap. He stroked the dirrel into calm. Oscar had to remain very, very inconspicuous.

  “The matter must be important, to bring people like you here,” he said slowly.

  “Critical indeed,” Gupta nodded. “It was essential for us to obtain possession of that engine.” Then they knew I was bringing it to Earth. So there’s a spy in the Buffalo’s top staff. He could have sent a coded radiogram without attracting much notice that’s common enough. Still, if we get a chance to check the Comcenter records—“Through various connections, we arranged that you would be delayed in Honolulu overnight.” Thunder and fury, how many tentacles have they got? “But believe me, I beg you, there was no idea of involving you otherwise. That was pure misfortune.”

  “Why did you want the unit?” Sevigny asked.

  No one replied. Maura came in with cups on a tray. She went among the men, lingering briefly by Sevigny. He took his cup without regarding her. Rashid refused his. She sat down again.

  “This is ridiculous,” Baccioco grumbled. “Far past my bedtime, and here I sit talking with a . . . an outplanet savage.”

  “Not the least ridiculous, sir,” Gupta said, “and in many respects the Cytherean culture is preferable to any on modern Earth.” He took an appreciative sip. “Ah! Do notice the coffee, clansman. Hawaiian kona is one of the glories of this planet . . . Information for information. If you will tell us what you know and surmise, we shall reciprocate. Gladly. We want you to understand that our motives are altruistic. Who knows, you may even enlist in our cause.”

  “Can we believe him?” Rashid growled.