She softened. "You've got to eat, Johnny," she said. "You haven't eaten
all day. And tonight you've got to sleep. I'll keep watch. Maybe it'll
be all right...."
Well, anyway it was nice to know that his wife was like that.
Yeah--gentle, and fairminded. After they had all eaten supper, he tried
hard to keep awake. Fear helped him to do so more than ever. Their tent
was now covered by the rising plastic roof--but beyond the clear
substance, he could still watch for starlight to be stopped by prowling
forms, out there at the jagged rim of Vesta. It was hell to feel your
skin puckering, and yet to have exhaustion pushing your eyelids down
inexorably....
Somewhere he lost the hold on himself. And he dreamed that Alf Neely and
he were fighting with their fists. And he was being beaten to a pulp.
But he was wishing desperately that he could win. Then they could have a
drink, and maybe be friends. But he knew hopelessly that things weren't
quite that simple, either.
* * * * *
He awoke to blink at blazing sunshine. Then his whole body became clammy
with perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility;
glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. His
wide eyes searched for the disaster that he knew he'd find....
But the wide roof was all the way up, now--intact. It made a great,
squarish bubble, the skin of which was specially treated to stop the
hard and dangerous part of the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and also
the lethal portion of the cosmic rays. It even had an inter-skin layer
of gum that could seal the punctures that grain-of-sand-sized meteors
might make. But meteors, though plentiful in the asteroid belt, were
curiously innocuous. They all moved in much the same direction as the
large asteroids, and at much the same velocity--so their relative speed
had to be low.
The walls of the small tent around Endlich sagged, where they had bulged
tautly before--showing that there was now a firm and equal pressure
beyond them. The electrolysis apparatus had been left active all night,
and the heating units. This was the result.
John Endlich was at first almost unbelieving when he saw that nothing
had been wrecked during the night. For a moment he was elated. He woke
up his family by shouting: "Look! The bums stayed away! They didn't
come! Look! We've got five acres of ground, covered by air that we can
breathe!"
His sense of triumph, however, was soon dampened. Yes--he'd been left
unmolested--for one night. But had that been done only to keep him at a
fruitless and sleepless watch? Probably. Another delicate form of
hazing. And it meant nothing for the night to come--or for those to
follow. So he was in the same harrowing position as before, pursued only
by a wild and defenseless drive to get things done. To find some slight
illusion of security by working to build a sham of normal, Earthly life.
To shut out the cold vacuum, and a little of the bluntness of the voidal
stars. To make certain reassuring sounds possible around him.
"Got to patch up the pieces of the house, first, and bolt 'em together,
Rose," he said feverishly. "Kids--maybe you could help by setting out
some of the hydroponic troughs for planting. We gotta break plain
ground, too, as soon as it's thawed enough. We gotta...." His words
raced on with his flying thoughts.
* * * * *
It was a mad day of toil. The hours were pitifully short. They couldn't
be stretched to cover more than a fraction of all the work that Endlich
wanted to get done. But the low gravity reduced the problem of heavy
lifting to almost zero, at least. And he did get the house assembled--so
that Rose and the kids and he could sleep inside its sealed doors.
Sealed, that is, if Neely or somebody didn't use a blaster or an
explosive cap or bullet--in an orgy of perverted humor.... He still had
no answer for that.
Rose and the children toiled almost as hard as he did. Rose even managed
to find a couple of dozen eggs, that--by being carefully packed to
withstand a spaceship's takeoff--had withstood the effects of Neely's
idea of fun. She set up an incubator, and put them inside, to be
hatched.
But, of course, sunset came again--with the same pendent threat as
before. Nerve-twisting. Terrible. And a vigil was all but impossible.
John Endlich was out on his feet--far more than just dog-tired....
"That damned Neely," he groaned, almost too weary even to swallow his
food, in spite of the luxury of a real, pullman-style supper table. "He
doesn't lose sleep. He can pick his time to come here and raise hob!"
Rose's glance was strange--almost guilty. "Tonight I think he might have
to stay home--too," she said.
John Endlich blinked at her.
"All right," she answered, rather defensively. "So to speak, Johnny, I
called the cops. Yesterday--with the small radio transmitter. When you
and Bubs and Evelyn were up in those old buildings. I reported Neely and
his companions."
"Reported them?"
"Sure. To Mr. Mahoney, the boss at the mining camp. I was glad to find
out that there is a little law and order around here. Mr. Mahoney was
nice. He said that he wouldn't be surprised if they were cooled in the
can for a few days, and then confined to the camp area. Matter of fact,
I radioed him again last night. It's been done."
John Endlich's vast sigh of relief was slightly tainted by the idea that
to call on a policing power for protection was a little bit on the timid
side.
"Oh," he grunted. "Thanks. I never thought of doing that."
"Johnny."
"Yeah?"
"I kind of got the notion, though--from between the lines of what Mr.
Mahoney said--that there was heavy trouble brewing at the camp. About
conditions, and home-leaves, and increased profit-sharing. Maybe there's
danger of riots and what-not, Johnny. Anyhow, Mr. Mahoney said that we
should 'keep on exercising all reasonable caution.'"
"Hmm-m--Mr. Mahoney is _very_ nice, ain't he?" Endlich growled.
"You stop that, Johnny," Rose ordered.
But her husband had already passed beyond thoughts of jealousy. He was
thinking of the time when Neely would have worked out his sentence, and
would be free to roam around again--no doubt with increased annoyance at
the Endlich clan for causing his restraint. If a riot or something
didn't spring him, beforehand. John Endlich itched to try to tear his
head off. But, of course, the same consequences as before still
applied....
* * * * *
As it turned out, the Endlichs had a reprieve of two months and fourteen
days, almost to the hour and figured on a strictly Earth-time scale.
For what it was worth, they accomplished a great deal. In their great
plastic greenhouse, supported like a colossal bubble by the humid,
artificially-warmed air inside it, long troughs were filled with pebbles
and hydroponic solution. And therein tomatoes were planted, and lettuce,
radishes, corn, onions, melons--just about everything in the vegetable
line.
There remained plenty of ground left over from the five acres, so John
Endlich tinkered with that fifty-million-year-old tractor, figured out
its atomic-power-to-steam principle, and used it to help harrow up the
ancient soil of a smashed planet. He added commercial fertilizers and
nitrates to it--the nitrates were, of course, distinct from the gaseous
nitrogen that had been held, spongelike, by the subsoil, and had helped
supply the greenhouse with atmosphere. Then he harrowed the ground
again. The tractor worked fine, except that the feeble gravity made the
lugs of its wheels slip a lot. He repeated his planting, in the
old-fashioned manner.
Under ideal conditions, the inside of the great bubble was soon a mass
of growing things. Rose had planted flowers--to be admired, and to help
out the hive of bees, which were essential to some of the other plants,
as well. Nor was the flora limited to the Earthly. Some seeds or spores
had survived, here, from the mother world of the asteroids. They came
out of their eons of suspended animation, to become root and tough,
spiky stalk, and to mix themselves sparsely with vegetation that had
immigrated from Earth, now that livable conditions had been restored
over this little piece of ground. But whether they were fruit or weed,
it was difficult to say.
Sometimes John Endlich was misled. Sometimes, listening to familiar
sounds, and smelling familiar odors, toward the latter part of his
reprieve, he almost imagined that he'd accomplished his basic desires
here on Vesta--when he had always failed on Earth.
There was the smell of warm soil, flowers, greenery. He heard irrigation
water trickling. The sweetcorn rustled in the wind of fans he'd set up
to circulate the air. Bees buzzed. Chickens, approaching adolescence,
peeped contentedly as they dusted themselves and stretched luxuriously
in the shadows of the cornfield.
For John Endlich it was all like the echo of a somnolent summer of his
boyhood. There was peace in it: it was like a yearning fulfilled. An end
of wanderlust for him, here on Vesta. In contrast to the airless
desolation outside, the interior of this five-acre greenhouse was the
one most desirable place to be. So, except for the vaguest of stirrings
sometimes in his mind, there was not much incentive to seek fun
elsewhere. If he ever had time.
And there was a lot of the legendary, too, in what his family and he had
accomplished. It was like returning a little of the blue sky and the
sounds of life to this land of ruins and roadways and the ghosts of dead
beauty. Maybe there'd be a lot more of all that, soon, when the rumored
major influx of homesteaders reached Vesta.
"Yes, Johnny," Rose said once. "'Legendary' is a lot nicer word than
'ghostly'. And the ghosts are changing their name to legends."
Rose had to teach the kids their regular lessons. That children would be
taught was part of the agreement you had to sign at the A. H. O. before
you could be shipped out with them. But the kids had time for whimsy,
too. In make-believe, they took their excursions far back to former
ages. They played that they were "Old People."
Endlich, having repaired his atomic battery, didn't draw power anymore
from the unit that had supplied the ancient buildings. But the relics
remained. From a device like a phonograph, there was even a bell-like
voice that chanted when a lever was pressed.
And it was the kids who found the first "tay-tay bug," a day
after its trills were heard from among the new foliage.
"Ta-a-a-ay-y-y--ta-a-a-a-ay-y-yy-y--" The sound was like that of a
little wheel, humming with the speed of rotation, and then slowing to a
scratchy stop.
A one-legged hopper, with a thin but rigid gliding wing of horn.
Opalescent in its colors. It had evidently hatched from a tiny egg,
preserved by the cold for ages.
Wise enough not to clutch it with his bare hands, Bubs came running with
it held in a leaf.
It proved harmless. It was ugly and beautiful. Its great charm was that
it was a vocal echo from the far past.
* * * * *
Sure. Life got to be fairly okay, in spite of hard work. The Endlichs
had conquered the awful stillness with life-sounds. Growing plants kept
the air in their greenhouse fresh and breathable by photosynthesis. John
Endlich did a lot of grinning and whistling. His temper never flared
once. Deep down in him there was only a brooding certainty that the calm
couldn't last. For, from all reports, trouble seethed at the mining
camp. At any time there might be a blowup, a reign of terror that would
roll over all of Vesta. A thing to release pent-up forces in men who had
seen too many hard stars, and had heard too much stillness. They were
like the stuff inside a complaining volcano.
The Endlichs had sought to time their various crops, so that they would
all be ready for market on as nearly as possible the same day. It was
intended as a trick of advertising--a dramatically sudden appearance of
much fresh produce.
So, one morning, in a jet-equipped space-suit, Endlich arced out for the
mining camp. Inside the suit he carried samples from his garden. Six
tomatoes. Beauties.
"Have luck with them, Johnny! But watch out!" Rose flung after him by
helmet phone. With a warm laugh. Just for a moment he felt maybe a
little silly. Tomatoes! But they were what he was banking on, and had
forced toward maturity, most. The way he figured, they were the kind of
fruit that the guys in the camp--gagged by a diet of canned and
dehydrated stuff, because they were too busy chasing mineral wealth to
keep a decent hydroponic garden going--would be hungriest for.
Well--he was rather too right, in some ways, to be fortunate. Yeah--they
still call what happened the Tomato War.
Poor Johnny Endlich. He was headed for the commissary dome to display
his wares. But vague urges sidetracked him, and he went into the
recreation dome of the camp, instead.
And into the bar.
The petty sin of two drinks hardly merits the punishing trouble which
came his way as, at least partially, a result. With his face-window
open, he stood at the bar with men whom he had never seen before. And he
began to have minor delusions of grandeur. He became a little too proud
of his accomplishments. His wariness slipped into abeyance. He had a
queer idea that, as a farmer with concrete evidence of his skills to
show, he would win respect that had been denied him. Dread of
consequences of some things that he might do, became blurred. His hot
temper began to smolder, under the spark of memory and the fury of
insult and malicious tricks, that, considering the safety of his loved
ones, he had had no way to fight back against. Frustration is a
dangerous force. Released a little, it excited him more. And the tense
mood of the camp--a thing in the very air of the domes--stirred him up
more. The camp--ready to explode into sudden, open barbarism for
days--was now at a point where nothing so dramatic as fresh tomatoes and
farmers in a bar was needed to set the fireworks off.
John Endlich had his two drinks. Then, with calm and foolhardy
detachment, he set the six tomatoes out in a row before him on the
synthetic mahogany.
* * * * *
He didn't have to wait at all for results. Bloodshot eyes, some of them
belonging to men who had been as gentle as lambs in their ordinary lives
on Earth, turned swiftly alert. Bristly faces showed swift changes of
expression: surprise, interest, greed for possession--but most of all,
aggressive and Satanic humor.
"_Jeez--tamadas!_" somebody growled, amazed.
Under the circumstances, to be aware of opportunity was to act. Big
paws, some bare and calloused, some in the gloves of space suits,
reached out, grabbed. Teeth bit. Juice squirted, landing on hard metal
shaped for the interplanetary regions.
So far, fine. John Endlich felt prouder of himself--he'd expected a
certain fierceness and lack of manners. But knowing all he did know, he
should have taken time to visualize the inevitable chain-reaction.
"Thanks, pal.... You're a prince...."
Sure--but the thanks were more of a mockery than a formality.
"Hey! None for me? Whatsa idea?..."
"Shuddup, Mic.... Who's dis guy?... Say, Friend--you wouldn't be that
pun'kin-head we been hearin' about, would you?... Well--my gracious--bet
you are! Dis'll be nice to watch!..."
"Where's Alf Neely, Cranston? What we need is excitement."
"Seen him out by the slot-machines. The bar is still out of bounds for
him. He can't come in here."
"Says who? Boss Man Mahoney? For dis much sport Neely can go straight to
hell! And take Boss Man with him on a pitchfork.... Hey-y-y!...
Ne-e-e-e-l-y-y-y!..."
The big man whose name was called lumbered to the window at the entrance
to the bar, and peered inside. During the last couple of months he'd
been in a perpetual grouch over his deprivation of liberty, which had
rankled him more as an affront to his dignity.
When he saw the husband of the authoress of his woes--the little bum,
who, being unable to guard his own, had allowed his woman to holler
"Cop!"--Neely let out a yell of sheer glee. His huge shoulders hunched,
his pendulous nose wobbled, his squinty eyes gleamed and he charged into
the bar.
John Endlich's first reaction was curiously similar to Neely's. He felt
a flash of savage triumph under the stimulus of the thought of immediate
battle with the cause of most of his troubles. Temper blazed in him.
Belatedly, however, the awareness came into his mind that he had started
an emotional avalanche that went far beyond the weight and fury of one
man like Neely. Lord, wouldn't he ever learn? It was tough as hell to
crawl, but how could a man put his wife and kids in awful jeopardy at
the hands of a flock of guys whom space had turned into gorillas?
Endlich tried for peace. It was to his credit that he did so quite
coolly. He turned toward his charging adversary and grinned.
"Hi, Neely," he said. "Have a drink--on me."
The big man stopped short, almost in unbelief that anyone could stoop so
low as to offer appeasement. Then he laughed uproariously.
"Why, I'd be delighted, Mr. Pun'kins," he said in a poisonous-sweet
tone. "Let bygones be bygones. Hey, Charlie! Hear what Pun'kins says?
The drinks are all on him! And how is the Little Lady, Mrs. Pun'kins?
Lonesome, I bet. Glad to hear it. I'm gonna fix that!"
With a sudden lunge Neely gripped Endlich's hand, and gave it a savage
if momentary twist that sent needles of pain shooting up the
homesteader's arm. It was a goading invitation to battle, which grim
knowledge of the sequel now compelled Endlich to pass up.
"Don't call him Pun'kins, Neely!" somebody yelled. "It ain't polite to
mispronounce a name. It's Mr. Tomatoes. I just saw. Bet he's got a
million of 'em, out there on the farm!"
* * * * *
The whole crowd in the bar broke into coarse shouts and laughs and
comments. "... We ain't good neighbors--neglecting our social duties.
Let's pay 'em a visit.... Pun'kins! What else you got besides tamadas?
Let's go on a picnic!... Hell with the Boss Man!... Yah-h-h--We need
some diversion.... I'm not goin' on shift.... Come on, everybody!
There's gonna be a fight--a moider!... Hell with the Boss Man...."
Like the flicker of flame flashing through dry gunpowder, you could feel
the excitement spread. Out of the bar. Out of the rec-dome. It would
soon ignite the whole tense camp.
John Endlich's heart was in his mouth, as his mind pictured the part of
all this that would affect him and his. A bunch of men gone wild,
kicking over the traces, arcing around Vesta, sacking and destroying in
sheer exuberance, like brats on Hallowe'en. They would stop at nothing.
And Rose and the kids....
This was it. What he'd been so scared of all along. It was at least
partly his own fault. And there was no way to stop it now.
"I love tomatoes, Mr. Pun'kins," Neely rumbled at Endlich's side,
reaching for the drink that had been set before him. "But first I'm
gonna smear you all over the camp.... Take my time--do a good job....
Because y'didn't give me any tomatoes...."
Whereat, John Endlich took the only slender advantage at hand for
him--surprise. With all the strength of his muscular body, backed up by
dread and pent-up fury, he sent a gloved fist crashing straight into
Neely's open face-window. Even the pang in his well-protected knuckles
was a satisfaction--for he knew that the damage to Neely's ugly features
must be many times greater.
The blow, occurring under the conditions of Vesta's tiny gravity, had an
entirely un-Earthly effect. Neely, eyes glazing, floated gently up and
away. And Endlich, since he had at the last instant clutched Neely's
arm, was drawn along with the miner in a graceful, arcing flight through
the smoky air of the bar. Both armored bodies, lacking nothing in
inertia, tore through the tough plastic window, and they bounced lightly
on the pavement of the main section of the rec-dome.
Neely was as limp as a wet rag, sleeping peacefully, blood all over his
crushed face. But that he was out of action signified no peace, when so
many of his buddies were nearby, and beginning to seethe, like a swarm
of hornets.
So there was an element of despair in Endlich's quick actions as he
slammed Neely's face-window and his own shut, picked up his enemy, and
used his jets to propel him in the long leap to the airlock of the dome.
He had no real plan. He just had the ragged and all but hopeless thought
of using Neely as a hostage--as a weapon in the bitter and desperate
attempt to defend his wife and children from the mob that would be
following close behind him....
Tumbling end over end with his light but bulky burden, he sprawled at
the threshold of the airlock, where the guard, posted there, had stepped
hastily out of his way. Again, capricious luck, surprise, and swift
action were on his side. He pressed the control-button of the lock, and
squirmed through its double valves before the startled guard could stop
him.
Then he slammed his jets wide, and aimed for the horizon.
* * * * *
It was a wild journey--for, to fly straight in a frictionless vacuum,
any missile must be very well balanced; and the inertia and the slight
but unwieldy weight of Neely's bulk disturbed such balance in his own
jet-equipped space suit. The journey was made, then, not in a smooth
arc, but in a series of erratic waverings. But what Endlich lacked in
precise direction, he made up in sheer reckless, dread-driven speed.
From the very start of that wild flight, he heard voices in his helmet
phones:
"Damn pun'kin-head greenhorn! Did you see how he hit Neely, Schmidt?
Yeah--by surprise.... Yeah--Kuzak. I saw. He hit without warning....
Damn yella yokel.... Who's comin' along to get him?..."
Sure--there was another side to it--other voices:
"Shucks--Neely had it coming to him. I hope the farmer really murders
that big lunkhead.... You ain't kiddin', Muir. I was glad to see his
face splatter like a rotten tamata...."
Okay--fine. It was good to know you had some sensible guys on your side.
But what good was it, when the camp as a whole was boiling over from its
internal troubles? There were more than enough roughnecks to do a mighty
messy job--fast.
Panting with tension, Endlich swooped down before his greenhouse, and
dragged Neely inside through the airlock. For a fleeting instant the
sights and sounds and smells that impinged on his senses, as he opened
his face-window once more, brought him a regret. The rustle of corn, the
odor of greenery, the chicken voices--there was home in all of this.
Something pastoral and beautiful and orderly--gained with hard work. And
something brought back--restored--from the remote past. The buzzing of
the tay-tay bug was even a real echo from that smashed yet undoubtedly
once beautiful world of antiquity.
But these were fragile concerns, beside the desperate question of the
immediate safety of Rose and the kids.... Already cries and shouts and
comments were coming faintly through his helmet phones again:
"Get the yokel! Get the bum!... We'll fix his wagon good...."
The pack was on the way--getting closer with every heartbeat. Never in
his life had Endlich experienced so harrowing a time as this; never, if
by some miracle he lived, could he expect another equal to it.
To stand and fight, as he would have done if he were alone, would mean
simply that he would be cut down. To try the peacemaking of appeasement,
would have probably the same result--plus, for himself, the dishonor of
contempt.
So, where was there to turn, with grim, unanswering blankness on every
side?
* * * * *
John Endlich felt mightily an old yearning--that of a fundamentally
peaceful man for a way to oppose and win against brutal, overpowering
odds without using either serious violence or the even more futile
course of supine submission. Here on Vesta, this had been the issue he
had faced all along. In many ages and many nations--and probably on many
planets throughout the universe--others had faced it before him.
To his straining and tortured mind the trite and somewhat mocking
answers came: Psychology. Salesmanship. The selling of respect for one's
self.
Ah, yes. These were fine words. Glib words. But the question, "How?" was
more bitter and derisive than ever.
Still, he had to try something--to make at least a forlorn effort. And
now, from certain beliefs that he had, coupled with some vague
observations that he had made during the last hour, a tattered
suggestion of what form that effort might take, came to him.
As for his personal defects that had given him trouble in the
past--well--he was lugubriously sure that he had learned a final lesson
about liquor. For him it always meant trouble. As for wanderlust, and
the gambling and hell-raising urge--he had been willing to stay put on
Vesta, named for the goddess of home, for weeks, now. And he was now
about to make his last great gamble. If he lost, he wouldn't be alive to
gamble again. If, by great good-fortune, he won--well he was certain
that all the charm of unnecessary chance-taking would, by the memory of
these awful moments, be forever poisoned in him.
Now Rose and the youngsters came hurrying toward him.
"Back so soon, Johnny?" Rose called. "What's this? What happened?"
"Who's the guy, Pop?" Evelyn asked. "Oh--Baloney Nose.... What are you
doing with him?"
But by then they all had guessed some of the tense mood, and its
probable meaning.
"Neely's pals are coming, Honey," Endlich said quietly. "It's the
showdown. Hide the kids. And yourself. Quick. Under the house, maybe."
Rose's pale eyes met his. They were comprehending, they were worried,
but they were cool. He could see that she didn't want to leave him.
Evelyn looked as though she might begin to whimper; but her small jaw
hardened.
Bubs' lower lip trembled. But he said valiantly: "I'll get the guns,
Pop, I'm stayin' with yuh."
"No you're not, son," John Endlich answered. "Get going. Orders. Get the
guns to keep with you--to watch out for Mom and Sis."
Rose took the kids away with her, without a word. Endlich wondered how
to describe what was maybe her last look at him. There were no fancy
words in his mind. Just Love. And deep concern.
Alf Neely was showing signs of returning consciousness. Which was good.
Still dragging him, Endlich went and got a bushel basket. It was filled
to the brim with ripe, red tomatoes, but he could carry its tiny weight
on the palm of one hand, scarcely noticing that it was there.
For an instant Endlich scanned the sky, through the clear plastic roof
of the great bubble. He saw at least a score of shapes in space armor,
arcing nearer--specks in human form, glowing with reflected sunlight,
like little hurtling moons among the stars. Neely's pals. In a moment
they would arrive.
* * * * *
Endlich took Neely and the loaded basket close to the transparent side
of the greenhouse, nearest the approaching roughnecks. There he removed
Neely's oxygen helmet, hoping that, maybe, this might deter his friends
a little from rupturing the plastic of the huge bubble and letting the
air out. It was a feeble safeguard, for, in all probability, in case of
such rupture, Neely would be rescued from death by smothering and cold
and the boiling of his blood, simply by having his helmet slammed back
on again.
Next, Endlich dumped the contents of the basket on the ground, inverted
it, and sat Neely upon it. The big man had recovered consciousness
enough to be merely groggy by now. Endlich slapped his battered face
vigorously, to help clear his head--after having, of course, relieved
him of the blaster at his belt.
Endlich left his own face-window open, so that the sounds of Neely's
voice could penetrate to the mike of his own helmet phone, thus to be
transmitted to the helmet phones of Neely's buddies.
Endlich was anything but calm inside, with the wild horde, as
irresponsible in their present state of mind as a pack of idiot baboons,
bearing down on him. But he forced his tone to be conversational when he
spoke.
"Hello, Neely," he said. "You mentioned you liked tomatoes. Maybe you
were kidding. Anyhow I brought you along home with me, so you could have
some. Here on the ground, right in front of you, is a whole bushel. The
regular asteroids price--considering the trouble it takes to grow 'em,
and the amount of dough a guy like you can make for himself out here, is
five bucks apiece. But for you, right now, they're all free. Here, have
a nice fresh, ripe one, Neely."
The big man glared at his captor for a second, after he had looked
dazedly around. He would have leaped to his feet--except that the muzzle
of his own blaster was leveled at the center of his chest, at a range of
not over twenty inches. For a fleeting instant, Neely looked scared and
prudent. Then he saw his pals, landing like a flock of birds, just
beyond the transparent side of the greenhouse. And he heard their
shouts, coming loudly from Endlich's helmet-phones:
"We come after you, Neely! We'll get the damn yokel off your neck....
Come on, guys--let's turn the damn place upside down!..."
Neely grew courageous--yes, maybe it did take a certain animal nerve to
do what he did. His battered and bloodied lip curled.
"Whatdayuh think you're up to, Pun'kin-head!" he snarled slowly, his
tone dripping contempt for the insanely foolish. He laughed sourly,
"Haw-haw-haw." Then his face twisted into a confident and mocking leer.
To carry the mockery farther, a big paw reached out and grabbed the
proffered tomato from Endlich's hand. "Sure--thanks. Anything to
oblige!" He took a great bite from the fruit, clowning the action
with a forced expression of relish. "Ummm!" he grunted. In danger, he
was being the showman, playing for the approval of his pals. He was
proving his comic coolness--that even now he was master of the
situation, and was in no hurry to be rescued. "Come on, punk!" he
ordered Endlich. "Where is the next one, seeing you're so generous? Be
polite to your guest!"
Endlich handed him a second tomato. But as he did so, it seemed all the
things he dreaded would happen were breathing down his back. For the
faces that he glimpsed beyond the plastic showed the twisted expressions
that betray the point where savage humor imperceptibly becomes
murderous. A dozen blasters were leveled at him.
But the eyes of the men outside showed, too, the kind of interest that
any odd procedure can command. They stood still for a moment, watching,
commenting:
"Hey--Neely! See if you can down the next one with one bite!... Don't
eat 'em all, Neely! Save some for us!..."
Endlich was following no complete plan. He had only the feeling that
somewhere here there might be a dramatic touch that, by a long chance,
would yield him a toehold on the situation. Without a word, he gave
Neely a third tomato. Then a fourth and a fifth....
Neely kept gobbling and clowning.
Yeah--but can this sort of horseplay go on until one man has consumed an
entire bushel of tomatoes? The question began to shine speculatively in
the faces of the onlookers. It began to appeal to their wolfish sense of
comedy. And it started to betray itself--in another manner--in Neely's
face.
* * * * *
After the fifteenth tomato, he burped and balked. "That's enough kiddin'
around, Pun'kin-head," he growled. "Get away with your damned garden
truck! I should be beatin' you to a grease-spot right this minute!
Why--I--"
Then Neely tried to lunge for the blaster. As Endlich squeezed the
trigger, he turned the weapon aside a trifle, so that the beam of energy
flicked past Neely's ear and splashed garden soil that turned
incandescent, instantly.
John Endlich might have died in that moment, cut down from behind. That
he wasn't probably meant that, from the position of complete underdog
among the spectators, his popularity had risen some.
"Neely," he said with a grin, "how can you start beatin', when you ain't
done eatin'? Neely--here I am, trying to be friendly and hospitable, and
you aren't co-operating. A whole bushel of juicy tomatoes--symbols of
civilization way the hell out here in the asteroids--and you haven't
even made a dent in 'em yet! What's the matter, Neely? Lose your
appetite? Here! Eat!..."
Endlich's tone was falsely persuasive. For there was a steely note of
command in it. And the blaster in Endlich's hand was pointed straight at
Neely's chest.
Neely's eyes began to look frightened and sullen. He shifted
uncomfortably, and the bushel basket creaked under his weight. "You're
yella as any damn pun'kin!" he said loudly. "You don't fight fair!...
Guys--what's the matter with you? Get this nut with the blaster offa
me!..."
"Hmm--yella," Endlich seemed to muse. "Maybe not as yella as you were
once--coming around here at night with a whole gang, not so long ago--"
"Call _me_ yella?" Nelly hollered. "Why, you lousy damn yokel, if you
didn't have that blaster--"
Endlich said grimly, "But I got it, friend!" He sent a stream of energy
from the blaster right past Neely's head, so close that a shock of the
other's hair smoked and curled into black wisps. "And watch your
language--my wife and kids can hear you--"
Neely's thick shoulders hunched. He ducked nervously, rubbing his
head--and for the first time there was a hint of genuine alarm in his
voice. "All right," he growled, "all right! Take it easy--"
Something deep within John Endlich relaxed--a cold tight knot seemed to
unwind--for, at that moment, he knew that Neely was beginning to lose.
The big man's evident discomfort and fear were the marks of weakness--to
his followers at least; and with them, he could never be a leader,
again. Moreover, he had allowed himself to be maneuvered into the
position of being the butt of a practical joke, that, by his own code,
must be followed up, to its nasty, if interesting, outcome. The
spectators began to resemble Romans at the circus, with Neely the
victim. And the victim's downfall was tragically swift.
"Come on, Neely! You heard what Pun'kins said," somebody yelled.
"Jeez--a whole bushel. Let's see how many you can eat, Neely.... Damned
if this ain't gonna be rich! Don't let us down, Neely! Nobody's hurtin'
yuh. All you have to do is eat--all them nice tamadas.... Hey, Neely--if
that bushel ain't enough for you, I'll personally buy you another, at
the reg'lar price. Haw-haw-haw.... Lucky Neely! Look at him! Having a
swell banquet. Better than if he was home.... Haw-haw-haw.... Come on,
Pun'kins--make him eat!..."
Yeah, under certain conditions human nature can be pretty fickle.
Wonderingly, John Endlich felt himself to be respected--the Top Man. The
guy who had shown courage and ingenuity, and was winning, by the harsh
code of men who had been roughened and soured by space--by life among
the asteroids.
* * * * *
For a little while then, he had to be hard. He thrust another tomato
toward Neely, at the same time directing a thin stream from the
blaster just past the big nose. Neely ate six more tomatoes with a will,
his eyes popping, sweat streaming down his forehead.
Endlich's next blaster-stream barely missed Neely's booted toe. The
persuasive shot was worth fifty-five more dollars in garden fruit
consumed. The crowd gave with mock cheers and bravos, and demanded more
action.
"That makes thirty-two.... Come on, Neely--that's just a good start. You
got a long, long ways to go.... Come on, Pun'kins--bet you can stuff
fifty into him...."
To goad Neely on in this ludicrous and savage game, Endlich next just
scorched the metal at Neely's shoulder. It isn't to be said that Endlich
didn't enjoy his revenge--for all the anguish and real danger that Neely
had caused him. But as this fierce yet childish sport went on, and the
going turned really rough for the big asteroid miner, Endlich's anger
began to be mixed with self-disgust. He'd always be a hot-tempered guy;
he couldn't help that. But now, satisfaction, and a hopeful glimpse of
peace ahead, burned the fury out of him and touched him with shame.
Still, for a little more, he had to go on. Again and again, as before,
he used that blaster. But, as he did so, he talked, ramblingly, knowing
that the audience, too, would hear what he said. Maybe, in a way, it was
a lecture; but he couldn't help that:
"Have another tomato, Neely. Sorry to do things like this--but it's your
own way. So why should you complain? Funny, ain't it? A man can get even
too many tomatoes. Civilized tomatoes. Part of something most guys
around here have been homesick for, for a long time.... Maybe that's
what has been most of the trouble out here in the asteroids. Not enough
civilization. On Earth we were used to certain standards--in spite of
being rough enough there, too. Here, the traces got kicked over. But on
this side of Vesta, an idea begins to soak in: This used to be nice
country--blue sky, trees growing. Some of that is coming back, Neely.
And order with it. Because, deep in our guts, that's what we all want.
And fresh vegetables'll help.... Have another tomato, Neely. Or should
we call it enough, guys?"
[Illustration: _Endlich's voice was steely ... "Sorry to do things like
this--but it's your way!"_]
"Neely, you ain't gonna quit now?" somebody guffawed. "You're doin'
almost good. Haw-haw!"
Neely's face was purple. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth hung partly
open. "Gawd--no--please!" he croaked.
An embarrassed hush fell over the crowd. Back home on Earth, they had
all been more-or-less average men. Finally someone said, expressing the
intrusion among them of the better dignity of man:
"Aw--let the poor dope go...."
Then and there, John Endlich sold what was left of his first bushel of
tomatoes. One of his customers--the once loud-mouthed Schmidt--even
said, rather stiffly, "Pun'kins--you're all right."
And these guys were the real roughnecks of the mining camp.
Is it necessary to mention that, as they were leaving, Neely lost his
pride completely, soiling the inside of his helmet's face-window so that
he could scarcely see out of it? That, amid the raucous laughter of his
companions, which still sounded slightly self-conscious and pitying.
Thus Alf Neely sank at last to the level of helpless oblivion and
nonentity.
* * * * *
A week of Vestal days later, in the afternoon, Rose and the kids came to
John Endlich, who was toiling over his cucumbers.
"Their name is Harper, Pop!" Bubs shouted.
"And they've got three children!" Evelyn added.
John Endlich, straightened, shaking a kink out of his tired back. "Who?"
he questioned.
"The people who are going to be our new neighbors, Johnny," Rose said
happily. "We just picked up the news on the radio--from their ship,
which is approaching from space right now! I hope they're nice folks.
And, Johnny--there used to be country schools with no more than five
pupils...."
"Sure," John Endlich said.
Something felt warm around his heart. Leave it to a woman to think of a
school--the symbol of civilization, marching now across the void. John
Endlich thought of the trouble at the mining camp, which his first load
of fresh vegetables, picked up by a small space boat, had perhaps helped
to end. He thought of the relics in this strange land. Things that were
like legends of a lost pastoral beauty. Things that could come back. The
second family of homesteaders was almost here. Endlich was reconciled to
domesticity. He felt at home; he felt proud.
Bees buzzed near him. A tay-tay bug from a perished era, hummed and
scraped out a mournful sound.
"I wonder if the Harper kids'll call you Mr. Pun'kins, Pop," Bubs
remarked. "Like the miners still do."
John Endlich laughed. But somehow he was prouder than ever. Maybe the
name would be a legend, too.