"I've come to ask you to surrender the Ship and march your men out of
here."
Colonel Gorham snorted. "My orders were to guard and protect this
rocket, down to the last man if necessary. On the sixth of July, a week
after the crash, I had orders direct from the President to hold this
Ship at any cost. He warned me then that there'd be mobs, maybe even an
attempt to storm the enclosure." He scowled angrily. "They'll never get
this ship as long as I'm alive."
"And have you heard from the President since the sixth?" Loevy's voice
was smooth.
"I have not."
"Perhaps that's because the President was hanged on the White House
lawn the day after he called you. Quite a mob was there. The food pinch
was just beginning to be felt. And that was forty-seven days ago--" He
glanced up at the Colonel's white face. "Oh, I'm not lying to you. It
happened. Have you had _any_ communications recently?"
"How could I? They cut the telephone cables, and we can't get anything
but hysterical nonsense from our radio sets--"
* * * * *
"Has it occurred to you that many things may have happened in the
course of this last month?" Loevy's voice was sharp in the still room.
"I'll hold this Ship until things get straightened out," the Colonel
snapped.
"Colonel--_things aren't going to straighten out_. This isn't just a
little depression we're in now, it isn't a small business recession
that will just up and stabilize soon. This is an economic crash that
has thrown the world back a thousand years. We may _never_ recover
from the crash that came on the first of July. The government is
gone, Colonel. _There isn't any government._ The army has dissolved
into the hills, hunting for food. The only money with any value is
being paid out by the hospitals for blood to restock their banks.
And without money there isn't any food. The people in the cities are
starving--standing in the streets starving because food isn't coming
in. Communications are out, there isn't any commercial traffic--"
"I have a stockpile of emergency rations a mile high, and I have four
hundred men who aren't running around in the hills," the Colonel
snarled. "I have a job to do, and I'm doing it--"
"But you're guarding an empty shell! Look, the people don't know all
the reasons for the collapse. They don't know the whole picture--but
they know one thing. They know they've been taxed beyond endurance,
their gasoline has been requisitioned, their boys taken for military
and labor service, their money devaluated again and again so that the
government could get a Rocket off the Earth before the Asians did. And
they know that now the whole world has fallen in a heap, and they're
starving to death. And they know that this Rocket was being worked on
when the crash came. They want it, Colonel. They are going to get it,
too. They need a scapegoat for these fifty-four days, and this Rocket
is it! And there won't _be_ any recovery as long as the ship stands."
He stared at the Colonel, and then made a hopeless gesture. "You don't
believe me, do you? You think that it's just a matter of time until
things stabilize, and everything will be back to normal, don't you?
Well, it won't Colonel. Do you know what they are calling the date,
out there? The Fifty-Fourth of July! Fifty-four days since the crash,
and things are getting worse every day. Even time has stood still;
they've forgotten to use the calendar. There'll never be a world like
you knew before, Colonel--but the agony and suffering and chaos must be
paid for, somehow, and the Rocket is the price. Until the whole world
knows that the Rocket is utterly destroyed, there will be no faith in
government or people or anything else."
Loevy glanced nervously at Matthews, towering against the wall watching
the discussion sourly. Then he looked back at the Colonel and leaned
forward. "Let them take the ship. There are things here far more
precious than any single rocket ship could ever be. You know what I
mean. If you resist, they'll get the ship and _everything else_--"
The Colonel's eyes moved to Matthews' heavy face, and then back to
Loevy. Suddenly his face looked very tired. "That's a chance I'll have
to take," he said wearily. "You're wasting your time, Loevy."
* * * * *
Later, around the campfire, Matt stared gloomily at old Moe Arhelger.
"I tell you, I don't like it," he said. "I just don't like it."
The old man cocked sharp eyes across the fire. "I don't see that any
harm was done. We gave the Bulldog his last chance. He didn't care to
take it. That suits me fine. Now he can watch out."
Matt shook his head sharply. "That isn't what I mean. I didn't like the
looks of the place. It looked too much like a going concern. Gorham was
too damned confident."
"Did you ever see a garrison commander who wasn't?"
"But Gorham is no fool. He knows we've got this encampment sewed up. He
knows he can't get out and neither can his men. He knows there won't
be any supplies coming in for him." Matt rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"And the look of the place--the look of the ship. I couldn't see much,
of course, but it didn't look right--"