You can't just lie here and let him come kill you.
There was a picture behind his eyes; he didn't know if it was a dream
or a long buried memory. He stood under an aspen which quivered and
rustled as if it laughed to itself softly, softly, when the wind
embraced it. And the wind was blowing up a red granite slope, wild
and salt from the Sound, and there were towering clouds lifting over
Denmark to the west. The sunlight rained and streamed through aspen
leaves, broken, shaken, falling in spatters against the earth, and
he, Bo Jonsson, laughed with the wind and the tree and the far watery
glitter of the Sound.
He opened his eyes, wearily, like an old man. Orion was marching past,
and there was a blaze on crags five miles off which told of the rising
sun. The asteroid spun swiftly; he had been here for many of its days
now, and each day burdened him like a year.
Got to get out of here, he knew.
He sat up, pain tearing along his furrowed breast. Somehow he had kept
the wrench with him, he stared at it in a dull wonder.
Where to go, where to hide, what to do?
Thirst nagged him. Slowly he uncoiled the tube which led from the
electrically heated canteen welded to his suit, screwed its end into
the helmet nipple, thumbed down the clamp which closed it, and sucked
hard. It helped a little.
He dragged himself to his feet and stood swaying, only the
near-weightlessness kept him erect. Turning his head in its transparent
cage, he saw the sun rise, and bright spots danced before him when he
looked away.
His vision cleared, but for a moment he thought the shadow lifting over
a nearby ridge was a wisp of unconsciousness. Then he made out the
bulky black-painted edge of it, gigantic against the Milky Way, and it
was Lundgard, moving unhurriedly up to kill him.
A dark laughter was in his radio earphones. "Take it easy, Bo. I'll be
there in a minute."
He backed away, his heart a sudden thunder, looking for a place to
hide. Down! Get down and don't stand where he can see you! He crouched
as much as the armor would allow and broke into a bounding run.
A slug spat broken stone near his feet. The powdery dust hung for
minutes before settling. Breath rattled in his throat. He saw the lip
of a meteoric crater and dove.
Crouching there, he heard Lundgard's voice again: "You're somewhere
near. Why not come out and finish it now?"
The radio was non-directional, so he snapped back: "A gun against a
monkey wrench?"
Lundgard's coolness broke a little; there was almost a puzzled note:
"I hate to do this. Why can't you be reasonable? I don't want to kill
you."
"The trouble," said Bo harshly, "is that I want to kill you."
"Behold the man of the New Enlightenment!" Bo could imagine Lundgard's
grin. It would be tight, and there would be sweat on the lean face, but
the amusement was genuine. "Didn't you believe sweet reasonableness
could solve everything? This is only the beginning, Bo, just a small
preliminary hint that the age of reason is dying. I've already
converted you to my way of thinking, by the very fact you're fighting
me. Why not admit it?"
Bo shook his head--futile gesture, looked in darkness where he lay.
There was a frosty blaze of stars when he looked up.
It was more than himself and Johnny Malone, more even than the
principle of the thing and the catastrophe to all men which Lundgard's
victory meant. There was something deep and primitive which would not
let him surrender, even in the teeth of annihilation. Valeria's image
swayed before him.
Lundgard was moving around, peering over the shadowy tumble of
blackened rock in search of any trace. There was a magnetic rifle in
his hands. Bo strained his helmet to the crater floor, trying to hear
ground vibrations, but there was nothing. He didn't know where Lundgard
was, only that he was very near.
Blindly, he bundled his legs and sprang out of the pit.
* * * * *
They found the asteroid where Valeria had left her recording
instruments. It was a tiny drifting fragment of a world which had never
been born, turning endlessly between the constellations; the _Sirius_
moored fast with grapples, and Valeria donned a spacesuit and went out
to get her apparatus. Lundgard accompanied her. As there was only work
for two, Bo stayed behind.
He slumped for a while in the pilot chair, letting his mind pace
through a circle of futility. Valeria, Valeria, Valeria--O strong and
fair and never to be forgotten, would he ever see her again after they
made Luna?
_This won't do_, he told himself dully. _I should at least keep busy.
Thank God for work._
He wasn't much of a thinker, he knew that, but he had cleverness in
his hands. It was satisfying to watch a machine come right under his
tools. Working, he could see the falseness of Lundgard's philosophy.
The man could quote history all he wanted; weave a glittering circle
of logic around Bo's awkward brain, but it didn't change facts. Maybe
this century was headed for trouble; maybe psychotechnic government was
only another human self-limitation and should be changed for something
else; nevertheless, the truth remained that most men were workers who
wished no more than peace in which to create as best they could. All
the high ideals in the universe weren't worth breaking the Union for
and smashing the work of human hands in a single burst of annihilating
flame.
_I can feel it, down inside me. But why can't I say it?_
He got up and went over to the baggage rack, remembering that Lundgard
had dozens of book-reels along and that reading would help him not to
think about what he could never have.
On a planet Bo would not have dreamed of helping himself without asking
first. But custom is different in space, where there is no privacy and
men must be a unit if they are to survive. He was faintly surprised
to see that Lundgard's personal suitcase was locked; but it would be
hours, probably, before the owner got back: dismantling a recorder
setup took time. A long time, in which to talk and laugh with Valeria.
In the chill spatial radiance, her hair would be like frosty fire.
Casually, Bo stooped across to Lundgard's sack-hammock and took his key
ring off the hook. He opened the suitcase and lifted out some of the
reels in search of a promising title.
Underneath them were neatly folded clothes, Fireball uniforms and fancy
dress pajamas. A tartan edge stuck out from below, and Bo lifted a coat
to see what clan that was. Probably a souvenir of Lundgard's Venusian
stay--
Next to the kilt was a box which he recognized. L-masks came in such
boxes.
How the idea came to him, he did not know. He stood there for minutes,
looking at the box without seeing it. The ship was very quiet around
him. He had a sudden feeling that the walls were closing in.
When he opened the box, his hands shook, and there was sweat trickling
along his ribs.
The mask was of the latest type, meant to fit over the head, snug
around the cheeks and mouth and jaws. It was like a second skin,
reflecting expression, not to be told from a real face. Bo saw the
craggy nose and the shock of dark hair, limp now, but--
Suddenly he was back on Achilles, with riot roaring around him and
Johnny Malone's body in his arms.
No wonder they never found that Venusian. There never was any.
Bo felt a dim shock when he looked at the chronometer. Only five
minutes had gone by while he stood there. Only five minutes to turn the
cosmos inside out.
Very slowly and carefully he repacked the suitcase and put it in the
rack and sat down to think.
What to do?
Accuse Lundgard to his face--no, the man undoubtedly carried that
needler. And there was Valeria to think of. A ricocheting dart, a
scratch on her, no! It took Bo a long time to decide; his brain seemed
viscous. When he looked out of a port to the indifferent stars, he
shuddered.
* * * * *
They came back, shedding their spacesuits in the airlock; frost
whitened the armor as moisture condensed on chilled surfaces. The metal
seemed to breathe cold. Valeria went efficiently to work, stowing the
boxed instruments as carefully as if they were her children. There was
a laughter on her lips which turned Bo's heart around inside him.
Lundgard leaned over the tiny desk where he sat. "What y' doing?" he
asked.
"Recalculating our orbit to Luna," said Bo. "I want to go slow for a
few million miles before going up to hyperbolic speed."
"Why? It'll add days to the trip, and the fuel--"
"I ... I'm afraid we might barge into Swarm 770. It's supposed to be
near here now and, uh, the positions of those things are never known
for sure ... perturbations...." Bo's mouth felt dry.
"You've got a megamile of safety margin or your orbit would never have
been approved," argued Lundgard.
"Hell damn it, I'm the captain!" yelled Bo.
"All right, all right ... take it easy, skipper." Lundgard shot a
humorous glance at Valeria. "I certainly don't mind a few extra days
in ... the present company."
She smiled at him. Bo felt ill.
His excuse was thin; if Lundgard thought to check the ephemeris, it
would fall to ruin. But he couldn't tell the real reason.
An iron-drive ship does not need to drift along the economical Hohmann
"A" orbit of the big freighters; it can build up such furious speed
that the sun will swing it along a hyperbola rather than an ellipse,
and can still brake that speed near its destination. But the critical
stage of acceleration has to be just right, or there will not be enough
fuel to stop completely; the ship will be pulled into a cometary orbit
and run helpless, the crew probably starving before a rescue vessel can
locate them. Bo dared not risk the trouble exploding at full drive; he
would drift along, capture and bind Lundgard at the first chance, and
then head for Earth. He could handle the _Sirius_ alone even if it was
illegal; he could not handle her if he had to fight simultaneously.
His knuckles were white on the controls as he loosed the grapples and
nudged away from the asteroid with a whisper of power. After a few
minutes of low acceleration, he cut the rockets, checked position and
velocity, and nodded. "On orbit," he said mechanically. "It's your turn
to cook, Ei ... Einar."
Lundgard swooped easily through the air into the cubbyhole which served
for a galley. Cooking in free fall is an art which not all spacemen
master, but he could--his meals were even good. Bo felt a helpless kind
of rage at his own clumsy efforts.
He crouched in midair, dark of mind, a leg hooked around a stanchion to
keep from drifting.
When someone touched him, his heart jumped and he whirled around.
"What's the matter, Bo?" asked Valeria. "You look like doomsday."
"I ... I...." He gulped noisily and twisted his mouth into a smile.
"Just feeling a little off."
"It's more than that, I think." Her eyes were grave. "You've seemed so
unhappy the whole trip. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Thanks ... Dr. McKittrick ... but--"
"Don't be so formal," she said, almost wistfully. "I don't bite. Too
many men think I do. Can't we be friends?"
"With a thick-headed clinker like me?" His whisper was raw.
"Don't be silly. It takes brains to be a spaceman. I like a man who
knows when to be quiet." She lowered her eyes, the lashes were long
and sooty black. "There's something solid about you, something so few
people seem to have these days. I wish you wouldn't go feeling so
inferior."
At any other time it would have been a sunburst in him. Now he thought
of death, and mumbled something and looked away. A hurt expression
crossed her face. "I won't bother you," she said gently, and moved off.