Three Worlds to Conquer Read online

  “M-m-m, it’s wilderness country there, isn’t it? And mighty big. You could wander forever without coming upon them.”

  “That must be hazarded.”

  “Well . . . I feel so bloody helpless, Theor. I can’t even stay by the radio much longer. Pm due at the conference, and after that, I don’t know what’ll happen.”

  “Call me when you can. Good fortune to you, mind-brother.”

  The loneliness closed in again.

  X

  Fraser sat for a while staring at the transceiver, until he clenched both fists and brought them down on the panel. The blow rang through silence and shadows. A beam of sunlight pierced the forward viewport, making veins and knobby knuckles stand forth with a certain cruelty. Noticing that reminded him how he still ached from over-exertion. Nuts! Forty isn’t old. But it can sure feel that way. Ah, stop sniveling. Make yourself presentable. You smell like a dead billy goat.

  Stiffly, he got up and moved to the rear of the gannycat. Danny Mendoza had turned it over to him when he said he had to contact Jupiter, so he could use its communication equipment and have room to stretch out between calls. He stripped, drew some water into a basin, and sponged his skin. There wasn’t much sense in cleaning up, just to meet a she-quisling. Well, morale. And she was attractive in her fashion. He grinned lopsidedly at himself.

  Memory ran back to the hour when she slipped him the note. That had been in Aurora rather than Swayne’s battleship headquarters—doubtless to make sure no one came to the conference after a hearty meal of dynamite, and lit a cigar. Fraser had accompanied Sam Hoshi. Lorraine was there too, and a couple of senior Navy officers. Supposedly she represented the town. Everyone sat on the edge of chairs, in the bleak, crowded room: except Swayne, behind the desk, who overpowered the scene. Not that he shouted, or even scolded; but he had the self-possession of victory.

  His hand sliced the air. “Let’s stop exchanging swear words,” he said. “From my viewpoint, you are insurrectionists. You killed and wounded a number of loyal men. Your heavy casualties are less than you deserve.”

  Hoshi opened his mouth, snapped it shut again, and writhed his fingers together. Two of his sons lay dead outside.

  Swayne quirked a smile that went no further than his eyes. “You, of course, look at it differently,” he continued. “Nobody’s opinion is likely to be changed here and now. Well, I am a professional fighter. I’m willing to admit you’re sincere, however misguided. The problem is not one of emotional attitudes, but of what to do. I’m more interested in getting on with my job than in immediate justice.”

  “What about justice later on, though, when the political cops arrive?” Fraser demanded. “Why should we give in, if we’re to be arrested inside a year, jailed, shot, or brainwashed?”

  Lorraine’s thick fair brows drew into a frown. “That last is a nasty word, Mark,” she said.

  “So call it re-education,” he answered. “I’d still rather die on my feet.”

  “I can’t give you any absolute guarantees,” Swayne confessed. “However, think a bit. The restored government will have its hands full on Earth and the inner planets for a long time to come. Why should it waste effort on a bunch of isolated colonists? Especially if I put in a good word for you? Cooperate with me and you have my promise as an officer of the United States Space Force that I will do that.”

  Fraser saw the taut face and believed. As for the police and the courts—yes, there was a pretty fair chance that Swayne had also called that turn correctly. Nonetheless, defeat was a jagged lump to swallow.

  Hoshi leaned forward. “There are five thousand people in the Jovian system,” he said tonelessly. “A lot fewer than a single one of your missiles would kill on Earth. Not to mention everybody who’d go before a firing squad, back there if not here. On balance, we ought to let the whole colony die if that can stop you.”

  “It can’t, though,” Swayne said. “It would be a setback, yes. But the Vega would still be at large. There are other places we might go, certain asteroids, for instance. Not as suitable as this, but worth trying if Ganymede is knocked out. And I don’t believe you’re able to accomplish that, anyway.”

  He leaned forward, bridging his fingers, nailing the visitors with his eyes. “Admit the facts,” he said.

  “You’re beaten. The only duty you have left is to your wives and children. I repeat my offer: withdraw to your homes, make no further trouble, and we’ll leave you alone in turn.”

  “You can even take along those people who want to leave Aurora,” Lorraine added. “And the rest of us will continue the flow of essential supplies to you.”

  “Nice gimmick,” Hoshi snorted. “Get rid of potential mutineers and saboteurs, huh?”

  “Of course,” said Swayne. “But are you so inhuman that you won’t take them in?”

  He talks of inhumanity! Fraser thought. I’ll never understand Homo Sapiens.

  Maybe that’s why I like Theor so much. Anxiety touched him. I should get back to the vehicle. He may have called.

  The talk dragged on, endlessly, meaninglessly. “We can’t pull out at once,” Hoshi said. “We’ve got wounded to care for.”

  “I’ll send out the hospital staff,” Lorraine promised.

  “I want you out of here fast,” Swayne insisted; and the haggling began anew.

  In the end, the mean little bargain was struck. The Ganymedeans rose. “Good day to you,” Swayne dismissed them.

  Lorraine went over to Fraser. He was already at the door, sick to get away. “Mark,” she said.

  He gave her his coldest stare.

  “Mark, I’m so sorry.”

  “You ought to be.” He opened the door.

  “Can’t you understand? I have to do what’s right, the same as you. And how can we know what’s right? It isn’t something you weigh or measure. No—” She looked away. Her teeth caught her lower lip. “It can tear you apart.”

  She had put on a dress for this occasion, severe in cut but still revealing of long legs and high bosom. Tears blurred the emerald eyes. He remembered shared work and shared laughter, and could not hate her.

  “Would you shake hands?” she whispered.

  Hoshi wasn’t looking. Fraser’s arm jerked forward. She caught his hand in a spasmodic motion. Her other hand closed over the clasp, bending his fingers. He felt a small stiff object. She shook her head, ever so faintly. His heart banged. He slipped it into his pocket, feeling as if the entire cosmos watched.

  “So long, Mark,” Lorraine said. She turned and walked from him, out the opposite door.

  He followed Hoshi to the nearest airlock. A pair of armed spacemen tramped behind. The corridors were deserted. Most of Aurora’s population had been ordered behind doors while the emergency lasted. Hoshi moved slump-shouldered, speaking not a word. Fraser’s head was in too much of a whirl to attempt any remark.

  Besides, what could the conquered say?

  Alone again in Mendoza’s cat, he look out the card. She had scrawled on it: Meet me behind the moonships at 0800 next cycle. Don’t let anyone know.

  Ganymede’s day equalled 7.15 of Earth’s. The colonists measured time in twenty-four hour units, Alpha Cycle, Bravo Cycle, and on through Gable, with Harry a truncated addendum. There were too few people on the other moons to make a different system worthwhile for them. The rendezvous was upon him.

  But what the devil can she want? To explain herself further? To offer me—He dismissed that possibility with a wry chuckle. Face the fact, he was an ugly old married man. Not that occasional thoughts hadn’t crossed his mind . . . And this was no damned time for them, while Eve waited beyond the mountains, and Sam Hoshi prepared for the homeward retreat, and Sam’s boys were blocks of ice on the lava, along with Pat Mahoney and so many others.

  Fraser completed his bath, squeezed the sponge into the basin and emptied that into the reclaimer, ran a depilator over his bristly features and a comb through his hair. Long John, spacesuit, pass through the lock and look around.
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br />   The colonial fleet glimmered in ranks under the brutal mass of Apache Crater. Men moved about here and there on various errands, in and out of shadows cast by the westering sun. But they were few; most sagged in their vehicles, waiting only to depart. Stars crowded the eastern horizon above the Glenn peaks, and Jupiter swelled enormously toward half phase at the zenith. Nonetheless, darkness dominated the land.

  Fraser kept to the gloom until he was behind the crater, then cut due east to put Aurora out of sight. Landmarks were like old friends, showing him how to circle around and approach the field again from the north, unseen. But he had an irrational feeling that they had stiffened into the same voicelessness as his dead.

  The clustered vessels rose before him. A figure stepped out from among them, took his arm, and led him back to their shelter. Helmet rang against helmet in a cave of night.

  “Oh, Mark!” Both her hands clutched at him. “I didn’t know if you’d trust me enough to come. Thank you, thank you.”

  He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “Why, uh, shouldn’t I?”

  “It could have been a trick. Remember, your escape was the first successful defiance. He was furious, in that cold creepy way of his. He talked about making an example of you. I didn’t know if he might not seize you when you came yester-cycle, in spite of everything. And yet, when we arranged for the conference, I had to suggest your name, had to ask you to come along, not being sure, not knowing if he’d respect your immunity or, or kill you.” The words tumbled from her, broken by unsteady breaths. “I told him you were, you are one of the most important men in the colony, you could better speak for your side than anyone else, even Hoshi.”

  “That’s not so. I, uh, you know I never was any kind of politician or leader. Not forceful enough, don’t have enough sense of human relations. I almost refused.”

  “I never feared that. You have too much sense of duty.”

  “Huh? No, ridiculous. And to hell with it, anyhow. So you risked my life to arrange this meeting. Why?”

  “I risked my own too,” she said defensively.

  “You?” he jeered. “The whitehaired girl of the glorious counterrevolution?”

  “Mark, I’m on your side!”

  He could only gape into lightlessness.

  “I didn’t approve of the Sam Halls,” said the hurried, muffled voice. “I thought they were honest but mistaken. Maybe I still do, I don’t know, everything is so confused. But I can’t go along with a man who . . . who’d do something like that . . . turn nuclear weapons on his own country. On any country that hasn’t done it first! I sat alone and cried. Oh, God, I was scared and sick—”

  “But you’ve collaborated,” he said stupidly.

  “Yes. Don’t you see? The call went out over the intercom for volunteers. I had to do something. What else could I do but get myself into a position where maybe, somehow, I could sabotage? They’d already inquired about a lot of us. They don’t have psycho-probe equipment, or I’d never have fooled them. But they do have a couple of tough political officers who know how to, to interrogate. They knew that everyone thought I must be on their side. So when I volunteered—Not that they took me on faith. I still see those two men in my dreams, barking question after question after question. But I got through it. Don’t ask me how, but I did. Now I’m the mayor. I keep the city running, and act as a go-between. They, the people, they obey, but I know how most of them loathe me. I can almost hear them thinking, If we can only get rid of the ship that bitch’ll wish she never was born—even more than I do now!”

  She gulped and was still.

  “I beg your humble pardon, Lory,” Fraser said.

  When she didn’t answer, he asked: “What’s the situation like in there?”

  “Queer,” she said in a wondering tone. “I’d never imagined how queer it would be. You think of occupation as being like everybody in jail. But no, life goes on, in a crippled fashion. People still have their jobs to do. They still go home at the end of a watch, and cook dinner, and play cards or talk or . . . whatever. Only a few vital points are guarded. And the guards, well, they aren’t exactly jailers. People have occasion to talk with them, and one word leads to another, you know, here’s this boy from Iowa so you ask him if he knows your cousin Joe and how the new Des Moines rocketport looks. Or looked. Maybe the fighting wrecked it; neither you nor he know——Some men, who made open trouble, are under arrest, but they aren’t mistreated and you can visit them at certain hours. Even the out-and-out collaborators have their human side. They’re still the folks you used to work with, chat with, invite to parties. You look for a change in them and can’t see any. Only there’s this wall around them, it’s invisible and sound passes through, but something is strained out.” She gave a forlorn laugh. “I’m talking as if I were an ordinary colonist. Actually, of course, I’m a collaborator myself.”

  “Are any of die other collaborators faking it like you?” Fraser inquired.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t dared approach them. Maybe they don’t dare approach me. Still, I doubt it. Nearly all you settlers have been away from Earth so long that you’ve gotten politically naive. You aren’t used to, well, handling the official jargon while thinking of something else. I believe most of you, trying to be sleepers, would soon make some word or gesture that didn’t ring true. And at once you’d be under suspicion, and off to the brig with you.”

  “What’s a sleeper?”

  “See, that’s what I mean. You don’t know as much as any child does at home. A sleeper is one like me. No, I think the other collaborators are genuine, some out of sincerity, some out of fear or opportunism. Of course, if we could destroy Swayne, they’d all claim to have been Sam Hall fifth columnists!”

  Like you, Lory? Fraser forced the question away with an effort. “How many are there?” 4C A couple of hundred. And fewer spacemen than that, of whom some have to stand watch aboard the Vega. It’s the real threat. Without it we could overpower the crew in no time, even if they do have the only firearms; But as long as it can shell the city . . . well, the loyal people bide their time, hoping something will turn up. Which makes them collaborators of a sort too. doesn’t it?”

  “Also us, Hoshi’s men, after today,” Fraser sighed. “How’s the warhead manufacture coming along?”

  “We’re still getting organized. I have to say ‘we’—part of my work is personnel screening. Mostly production can be automated, but a few engineers and technics will be needed to set up the plant, and a few more to run it, plus others to mine the ores, bring them in, refine them and deliver the isotopes. Every colonial will be under guard every minute he works, naturally; but even so, we have to assemble a predictable staff, shall I say. Not necessarily devoted to the cause, but obedient. We can do it, too, by evaluating the psyche records in the medical files. That takes time, though. And of course I’m as inefficient as I dare be.”

  “I wonder . . . it occurs to me . . . is every man in the ship’s crew reliable?”

  “Yes. Career military personnel always got thorough probing at intervals, you know, especially in a sensitive organization like the Space Force Swayne told me he’d only had to send three men out the airlock Only!”

  “Well—” Fraser searched for words. Silence pressed in so heavily that he didn’t stop to polish them. “Okay. What do you want with me?”

  “You’re the one man I can trust Who might possibly be able to help,” she told him.

  “Huh? How?”

  “You’re a good space pilot.”

  “You mean you can smuggle me onto a moonship? That’s useless.”

  “More useless than you realize. Every one of these boats has had the air bled off and the reaction regulator taken out. It’ll only be put back in when an absolutely essential trip has to be made; and then a couple of guards will go along. There are no free ships left on the other moons, either. Before your army arrived, Swayne sent his boats out. The Traffic Control records told them where to look. They shot a small missile at eac
h parked ship. Partly that’s a precaution against someone trying a suicide dive onto the Vega—though its guns could doubtless abort any such attempt quite easily. Mainly, though, it’s to tighten his hold on us. If we don’t behave, our people on Io and Callisto and the other moons will be left to starve. Or maybe gunned down—there’s a picket boat in orbit around each one.

  “I see.” Fraser swallowed. His palms felt clammy. “What do you have in mind?”

  “He overlooked one ship. And she’s got the acceleration to reach Earth in time to warn them.”

  “Come again?”

  “The Jupiter ship, The Olympia

  Fraser stared at her, incomprehending. “But—”

  “I know. Her mission was postponed because of the trouble on Jupiter, and she’s not yet stocked with food, water, or anything else for life support. But she’s otherwise set to go!”

  “And with so much else on their minds—and the ship sitting right under the Vega’s guns—yes.” The blood pounded in Fraser’s ears and at the base of his throat. “If the stuff could, somehow, be smuggled aboard—”

  “I don’t know how. I haven’t had much time to think myself. But maybe we can figure out a way. And you can drive her, can’t you?”

  “How would I ever get aboard? Hoshi’s leaving before sundown.”

  “Come into the city with me. Entry is safe, especially in the confusion there’ll be when the evacuees go out. Not too many of them, actually; essential personnel won’t be allowed to go. But still, quite a number. You can hide in my place and we’ll make plans when I’m off duty. We may lose a little weight, sharing one ration between us, but I don’t mind. The risk is pretty horrible, I know. I won’t blame you in the least for refusing. You’ve got a family, I don’t, it makes a difference. But this is just all I can think of to do.”