by Ben Bova
The Sun awoke Alec after what seemed like a mere few minutes of dozing. After checking with Jameson to see that everything was all right with the men, Alec walked stiff-jointed and aching to the embers of the campfire. It was smoldering low, but one of the women was putting fresh logs onto it.
"Well, you're up at last," Will Russo called to him jovially. He was standing a short distance from the fire, holding a steaming cup in one big hand. Walking around the fire to confront Alec, he said, "Here, have some herb tea. It isn't terribly good, but it'll help to start your engines running. If you'd like to shave ..."
Alec shook his head blearily. He got the cup almost to his lips, then remembered the searing pain of the previous night's stew. His mouth still felt raw.
"Um . . . thanks." He handed the cup back to Will. "I'll just take some water."
Will shrugged. "Have you made contact with the satellite yet? Are they coming to pick you up?"
"Not yet," Alec said, going for the water canteen by the fire. "We've got someone on the radio now, but no luck so far."
He drank from the canteen, and again worried about catching some local disease.
"Well," Russo said, "I'd hate to leave you out here in the woods by yourselves, but we can't hang around here much longer."
"1 understand," Alec said.
He left Will by the campfire and strode quickly back to the trucks. Going to the cab of the first one he came to, Alec pulled the medical kit from its niche behind the driver's seat. The pills were all in neatly labelled vials, but the labels were not very specific. More than half the pills were already missing, besides. Trying to remember his medical briefings, Alec took three different pills and swallowed them dry.
"Oh, there you are." It was Ron Jameson.
Alec swung down from the cab. "What is it?"
"Radio contact."
Alec followed Jameson to the third truck.
Gianelli was in the cab, a huge pair of earphones clamped around his head, squinting with concentration.
"Yeah . . . yeah . . . still coming through weak but clear. Okay, here he is now. Hold on . . ."
He took off the earphones and held them out for Alec. "The satellite's relaying a call from home. Kobol's back at the settlement already."
Fitting the earphones over his head and adjusting the lip mike that swung out from the right 'phone, Alec thought rapidly, Kobol! He'd pushed straight on to the settlement on the highest-gee boost he could get. Must have burned every gram of propellant between the satellite and the Imbrium mines.
The big, cumbersome earphones blotted out all sounds except for the hissing, crackling static of the radio. Alec could see that Gianelli was saying something to Jameson, but he could not hear their voices.
"Hello . . . hello . . . Alec Morgan?" The communications tech was a girl, that much Alec could tell. But her voice was faint and streaked with interference.
"Yes. Go ahead"
A pause, then, "Alec, this is Martin Kobol. Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
It took about two and a half seconds for Alec's words to get to the Moon and Kobol's response to reach back to Earth. A discernable pause.
"Good. Now listen. I've just arrived back at the settlement. The Council's going to meet in an hour. Everything's completely upset here—all our plans, everything. There's a threat of real panic through the entire settlement if we don't act carefully and reassure the people. They were all depending on getting those fissionables."
"I know that." Spare the political speeches!
Pause. Then, "We've got to work out another plan. Can you hold out down there on the surface for a few more days?"
Or a few weeks? Or months? "Yes, I think so."
"Good. Now listen. Stay where you are. Hold tight while we figure out the next move."
"No."
A long pause. Not merely because of the distance this time.
"What was that?"
"I said no," Alec repeated. "I know where the fissionables are. We're going to get them."
"You can't ... I mean ..."
"I can and I'm going to. We'll keep in touch with the satellite," Alec said. He counted, waiting for the response: one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, th . . .
"This is psychotic! You're going to force us to pull another shuttle out of mothballs, track your movements ..."
"Stow it, Martin. We came here for the fissionables and we're going to get them. Everything else is a detail."
Kobol's voice, when it came, was almost a woman's screech. "You can't travel across the continent and find him, you fool! You'll kill yourself and your men with you!"
"You'd hate that, wouldn't you?" Alec shot back. "Listen to me, Martin. We can travel across country. And we can live off the country,- too. There's plenty of food here."
But Kobol was already saying, "I don't care what you do to yourself, your personal grudges are your business, not mine. But to risk the rest of those men without even giving them a chance ..."
"Save your speeches for the Council, Martin. Tell them I'm following their prime directive: I'm going to get the fissionables."
The time lag between their statements was turning the conversation into two separate monologues. "And there's medicine," Kobol was saying, but more calmly now. He was more in charge of himself, obviously thinking fast while he spoke, "You'll be exposing those men to all the diseases of Earth . . ."
"I want to talk to my mother now," Alec said.
"Please put her on."
"Your inoculations won't keep you protected . . ." Kobol stopped, then answered, "Your mother's busy preparing for the Council meeting. By the time we could get her here to the communications center the satellite would be below your horizon and out of range."
"Very well. Arrange for her to call me tomorrow."
The pause again. Alec could sense Kobol's mind churning furiously during the hiatus. "I'll tell her. In the meantime, I must warn you again that you should not endanger your men foolishly. The Council won't look favorably on any rash action. You should stay where you are until we've decided on the next step."
"Too dangerous," Alec countered. "We've already been trapped here once. I don't want to allow that to happen again."
Kobol's voice was starting to fade. "Your orders are to stay where you are."
Smiling tightly, "No good, Martin. We're in much greater danger here than we will be on the move. I'll expect a call tomorrow. From my mother. Now I'm going to put Gianelli back on. Give him the ephemerides for the satellite, so we'll know when you're in contact range."
Alec pulled the earphones off his head and handed them to Gianelli. "Quick, before the satellite gets out of range."
Gianelli took the earphones with a slight, quizzical grin. "Gonna make heroes out of us," he muttered.
Jameson said nothing. Alec left the truck and went searching for Will Russo. Halfway back to the campfire he spotted the big redhead striding toward him.
"Looking for you," Will said.
There was something about the man, his big gangling gait, the way his arms swung loosely at his sides, the innocent grin on his face—Alec found it impossible to distrust him.
"I've been looking for you, too," Alec said.
"Have you been in touch with your people?"
Will hiked a thumb skyward.
"Yes. If you don't mind, I'd like to travel north with you. I want to find my father."
Will's grin broadened. "Good. Good. I just got a message from him. He's only a few klicks—eh, kilometers—from here, in a town named Coalfield."
"Here?" Alec suddenly felt weightless, all the breath knocked out of him.
"Yep." Will nodded happily. "We can be there in a couple of hours."
Chapter 17
Alec scarcely noticed the countryside rolling past as he sat on the fender of the lead truck, heading for the town where his father waited for him.
They came down out of the ridges and woods, all of his own men and all Russo's people riding on the trucks. They b
umped onto a paved road; not a wide concrete highway like the one between Oak Ridge and the airport, but a narrow, twisting blacktopped road, cracked and potted beyond description.
Weeds and grass sprouted in every crevice.
Behind him Alec could hear Gianelli talking with Angela. "You mean you walk all the time?" he was asking. "Carrying all your food and guns and all?"
She sounded almost amused. "Sure. We ride when we can find something to ride on. There aren't many cars or trucks still running—just a few electrics that run on solar batteries. Not much fuel left for gas-burners."
"So you walk?" There was amazement in Gianelli's voice. "And you carry everything on your backs."
"Unless we can find horses or other pack animals. I covered five hundred klicks on a cow last year, when I hurt my leg."
"Which one?"
"The right."
"Looks pretty good now." Gianelli's voice had a leer in it.
"It's fine. And you can keep your hands off!"
Alec turned and said evenly. "There could be five hundred raiders in those trees. Play some other time."
Gianelli's face reddened and his mouth squeezed down into a hard line. But he moved away from the girl. Angela looked at Alec for a wordless moment. Then he turned away.
Up ahead he could see the first buildings of the town. His hands suddenly felt clammy, shaky. He tightened his grip on the edge of the fender with one hand, shifted the machine pistol's belt across his shoulder with the other. He's here. Somewhere among these buildings . . . Every sense in him peaked, brightened. Alec could hear his pulse throbbing in his ears, feel his breath quicken. He's here! But deep within him, something was telling him to run, to get away, anything but this one place. Journey across the whole face of the planet, travel back to the Moon, get away, anywhere, anyplace.
Yet he was impatient to meet the man he had come to find.
Alec knew from his history tapes that this was a small town. Yet it still dwarfed the lunar community. All these buildings, aboveground, out in the open! And their variety: one floor, three ^floors, brick fronts, wooden slats, something that looked like stone blocks. Windows staring down at him, empty, mysterious, dark. Street after street after street, branching and intersecting every hundred meters or so.
But empty. Dead. No one lived here. No one was on the streets. No vehicles. Nothing in sight except the silent buildings and wind-blown dust billowing through the empty streets.
He looked across to Will, perched on the opposite fender.
"Town's been deserted since the sky burned,"
Will said. "People come by once in a while, but nobody lives here permanently. Too tough to grow food here; too hard to defend the town against raiders."
"How do you know which building my father's in?"
Will grinned hugely. "Oh, Douglas'll be in his usual place."
It turned out to be a one-story red-brick building with a sign spanning its width: U.S. POST OFFICE — COALFIELD, TENN.—33719.
Will suggested that the trucks be spread around the building in a defensive perimeter. Alec passed the order on to Jameson, then the truck he was on trundled into the parking lot behind the Post Office building. Nestled under a protective overhang sat a squarish, squat, open-topped vehicle.
Alec recognized it from his teaching tapes as a jeep.
As he climbed down from the truck, Alec wondered where his father found the fuel to propel a jeep. If he can cover long distances in it, then he must have fuel depots spotted along the way. Then Will Russo came around, grabbed Alec by the arm and ushered him through a doorway that had long ago lost its door.
It was dark inside. They walked down a narrow corridor, turned a corner.
And there he was.
He was standing in the center of a big room, surrounded by empty shelves and broken, shattered wooden desks and tables. The roof was partially gone, so the sunlight streamed in, dust motes drifting lazily in the still air. The room was large and open, but Douglas Morgan seemed to fill it. He was big, hulking, broad-shouldered and thick-bodied.
Will Russo was almost as big, Alec realized.
But where Will was a grinning, happy oversized puppy, Douglas Morgan was a towering, lumbering gray bear.
His face was square-jawed and strong, with iron-gray hair rising in a bristling shock from his broad forehead and framing his powerful jaw with an iron-gray spade-shaped beard. His blue eyes were like gunmetal. They stared straight at Alec now, unblinking, pinning him where he stood.
I don't look anything like him, Alec heard his own inner voice saying. No wonder he hates me.
"You're Alec, eh?" His voice was strong, demanding, even in normal conversational tone.
"You have your mother's genes, all right."
And not yours? Alec wondered. "I'm Alec," he said.
"Well, come over here and let me see you. I'm not going to bite you."
Alec walked slowly toward his father. The man was a giant, a mountainous man, with a powerful commanding voice to match.
They stood confronting each other. Neither offered a hand. Neither smiled. Despite the sunlight beaming down through the broken roof, Alec felt cold, numbed to his core.
"He's a good fighter," Will's voice broke the staring match between them. "Helped me take a nasty mortar nest. Handled himself very well."
Douglas nodded. "That's something."
"I vomited afterward," Alec snapped.
Douglas's heavy eyebrows went up. "Did you? A sensitive soul, eh? Well . . . killing a man's no joke. But be glad you were the one who was still alive to get sick, not the one somebody else got sick over."
Will said, "Why don't we sit down and have something to drink? It's been a dusty ride up here, and I sort of feel like celebrating."
"Celebrating what?" Douglas asked.
"Family reunion!"
"Oh. That." He smiled sardonically. "Sure. Obviously you've found some liquid lightning along the way. So uncork it and we'll have a little party. Just the three of us."
"It's in my pack." Will bounded back toward the door.
"Sorry we haven't had the place dusted and decorated for the big occasion," Douglas said to Alec. "Eh . . . the furniture's a bit nonexistent. Care to sit over here?"
He gestured elaborately toward the floor next to a scarred, battered wooden counter that ran across the front of the room. Alec shrugged and dropped down onto his heels. He watched as Douglas stiffly, slowly sank down into a sitting position. He leaned his back against the sagging partitions under the counter-top with an audible sigh.
"Caught a cold in my back during the spring rains," he said, without turning to look at his son.
"Makes it merry hell to bend."
Will came back, holding a metal flask in his big freckled hand. He sat on the floor facing Alec and Douglas. Grinning, he unscrewed the cap of the flask and sniffed at its contents.
"Wow! Shouldn't keep this in the hot sun."
Douglas reached for it and took a cautious whiff. "I'll bet I could get fifty klicks to the gallon on my jeep with this stuff." He passed the flask to Alec. "Here. You're the guest of honor. You get the first shot. If you survive, maybe we'll try it."
"It's not that bad," Will said, trying to look aggrieved.
"The farmer who sold it to me swore he brewed it last summer."
Alec took the flask and brought it to his lips. The fumes seemed to crawl right up inside his eyeballs, making them water. He took a sip. It stung and tasted sour. Don't cough! he commanded himself.
"Not bad," he said, his voice-only partly choked.
Douglas took the flask from him. "Well, if you can stand it, I suppose I can too."
Alec watched his father take a long swallow of the liquor, while his own sip burned its way down toward his stomach. They passed the flask among themselves for another round before Douglas said:
"We have a lot to talk about."
"Yes, we do," Alec agreed.
Will said, "Maybe I ought to tiptoe out . . ."
/> "No, stay right here," Douglas commanded.
That eliminates talking about mother, Alec thought. Aloud, he said, "The fissionables are gone."
"Right. We took them north . . . er, for safekeeping."
"We need them."
"I know you do. I knew it before you were born."
"Then why did you take them away? Why didn't you bring them back yourself? Why did you turn your back on us and stay here in this mudhole?"
All in a rush.
Douglas held the flask in his hand. He looked at it, then shook his head once, abruptly, as if he'd made a firm decision. "That is a long story. But it all boils down to one unavoidable fact. The lunar settlement cannot survive by itself. It needs Earth. Otherwise, it's going to die."
"Of course! We need those fissionables."
"It's not the fissionables." Douglas leaned an elbow on the sagging wooden shelf behind him.
The wood creaked. "There's more than the fissionables involved . . . far more. The life of the settlement itself."
"I don't follow."
"Look—the settlement was never intended to be entirely self-sufficient. Right? When the Sun flared up they were suddenly thrust on their own. No more support from Earth."
Alec said, "And we've been on our own for more than twenty-five years now. Doing fine."
"Bull-hinkey! You think you're doing fine."
Douglas's voice rose slightly. "But take a good, unbiased look at the settlement. You're still operating with the machinery that was there before the flare, right? No one's built new reactors, new processing plants, new solar panels, new shuttles, eh? No one's even tried to rectify the processing plants so they can run on the voltages that the solar arrays produce, have they? No! Instead you keep coming back to Earth to grab fissionables for the reactors."
"So?"
"So what happens when you've used up all the fissionable fuel you can find? What then?"
Douglas demanded.
"That won't happen for centuries!"
"Centuries, millennia . . . what difference? The point is," Douglas insisted, "that it's going to happen one day, and unless you people have the knowledge and the guts to work out new devices — like fusion generators, for example—then you're going to die. All of you."