by Anthology
"Come back!" he yelled. "For God's sake, come back! You'll get caught by the blast!"
* * * * *
They were so intent that they paid no heed to him. He ran on after them, trying to make himself heard, forgetful of his own peril.
"Look!" The strong fingers of Jason Tarsh dug deep into the lawyer's arm. Delman turned instinctively. Nearly four hundred yards away, three figures stumbled back toward the house.
"It's too late," Delman said. "Get down, all of you! If Ross sees them, he may try to overshoot. If he's going too slowly, he'll have to use the rear jets and they might splash us. Get down!"
They flattened themselves out on the floor of the veranda.
Above them, the thin whine of the approaching craft switched into a deep roar, then cut out almost instantly.
Delman saw the flash of silver overhead as the spaceboat fought to recover altitude. One moment, it was climbing; the next, it veered sharply to the left and hit the cliff.
Sound and light combined, deafening and dazzling, as the force of the explosion thrust outward, tearing at the foundations of the house itself.
When the hail of falling rock had died away, they got up and looked around them. It was difficult to determine the extent of the damage, for dust swirled and eddied in all directions. Only gradually did the details emerge from the surrounding mist.
The crash had caused a small avalanche. Rubble littered the smooth width of the runway. Of the spaceboat, there was nothing to be seen but a scar on the mountainside.
John Bridge and the two servants had vanished.
"That crazy old fool," said Walter Pellinger. "I might have known he'd mess things up."
"It wasn't him," Gillian Murray replied. "I think it was the servants. I'm sure I heard him shout a warning at them."
"You think! You think!" Walter Pellinger shook his head vigorously from side to side. His ears were still ringing from the blast. "He's dead, Miss Murray. You hear me? He's dead! He doesn't need a champion now!"
Gillian Murray flushed. "Why, you ungrateful--"
"Shut up, both of you!" said Jason Tarsh angrily. "Can't you see there's work to be done? We've got to clear the runway."
Curtis Delman left the veranda rail and came toward them. "And just how do you propose to do that, Mr. Tarsh?" he asked quietly.
* * * * *
All of them looked at the lawyer in amazement. Jason Tarsh laughed derisively.
"Listen to him!" he exclaimed. "The Great Man! Wants to know how you remove a few small stones!"
"You damned idiot!" said Delman savagely. "Use your eyes! Why were this house and the storage sheds prefabricated? Just for the hell of it? Dozens of useless trips when you could build what you wanted from rock? Until today, there wasn't a loose pebble in this godforsaken place! Didn't that strike you as odd? Well, didn't it?"
Tarsh made no reply.
The lawyer moved back to the veranda rail. "There!" he said, pointing at a near-lying stone the size of a tennis ball. "Go ahead, try your strength. Throw it over the side!"
Uncertainly, Jason Tarsh walked into the open. They watched him as he bent down to pick up the small purple lump. For nearly a minute, he strained and tugged at the dead, unyielding weight in front of him. Then, slowly, he straightened up and returned to the veranda.
"You're right," he said grudgingly. "I couldn't lift it."
Delman nodded. "Considering it's more than ten times the weight of lead, that's not surprising."
"Anyhow, there's one consolation," said Jason Tarsh. "We weren't on that spaceboat."
The lawyer regarded him with pity. "No, we weren't," he said, "but whether it's a consolation remains to be seen."
"What are you driving at?" demanded Walter Pellinger. "They'll send a rescue party. They must know there's something wrong."
"Oh, yes," Delman agreed. "But they don't know what and we can't tell them. And, even if they did know, what could they do?" He began to stroll up and down the veranda. "As far as they're concerned, Ross hasn't reported to Algon. Perhaps his transmitter failed. Perhaps he blew up in space. There are plenty of possibilities. If they treat the matter as an emergency, the relief boat may get here in twenty-eight days instead of thirty. But it can't land and it can't hover, so what good is it to us?"
"Now wait, Delman. You know the reputation of Rejuvenal Enterprises. A company like that can't afford to take a risk. They'll send for a patrol ship--"
"And those patrol ships are equipped with heli-cars," Tarsh interjected. "They can launch a couple and pick us up in no time. It's not difficult."
Pellinger nodded in agreement. "There you are. And Jason ought to know; he's spent most of his life dodging them."
* * * * *
Delman looked at Tarsh with distaste. "I remember now. You were the man who shipped girls to Mercury and got run in under Section 7 of the White Slavery Act. Ten years, wasn't it?"
"That's right," Jason Tarsh answered, "but there's no need to be nasty about it. Just fulfilling the old commercial custom of supply and demand." His thin lips broke into a smile. "Know what they used to call me in the camps? 'The Miner's Best Friend.' Nice of them, eh?"
"Was it? They gave the same name to their canaries in the old days--and most of those were killed by fire-damp. But to get back to your mythical patrol ship--where do you expect it to come from? You know as well as I do, they keep to the main spaceways. We're tucked away in a remote corner of the Galaxy. There's one chance in a thousand that a patrol ship is within forty-five days of here."
The color drained from Walter Pellinger's face. "Why forty-five?" he whispered.
The lawyer paused before replying. They were grouped around him in a half-circle, three frightened people waiting for an answer, yet knowing in their hearts what that answer would be.
He shrugged. "I should have thought it was obvious," he said. "Of course, I've no wish to alarm you and there is a method that might get us out of here, but we've got to face the facts. I was the only one among you whose legs had already begun to fail, so it's safe to assume I'm the oldest inhabitant. In forty-five days, I shall be ten--the rest of you will be less--and I can't guarantee to look after you any longer than that." He fell silent, allowing the implication to sink in.
"Seven million dollars!" cried Walter Pellinger. "I've paid seven million dollars just to die!" He began to laugh hysterically.
"Stop it, you fool!" Jason Tarsh caught him by the shoulders and began to shake him violently. "You've paid seven million dollars to die young. Why, you ought to be tickled pink. Remember the slogan of Galactic Stores--'Originality is the Test of Taste!'"
Gillian Murray seized the lawyer's hand. "Curtis, you said something about a method."
He pointed at the emergency hangar over on the far side. "There's a lifeboat in there. It may have been damaged by the blast, so don't pin your hopes on it. But if we can shift the loose stones and get the doors open, we'll soon know."
Arm in arm, they walked across the landing strip.
* * * * *
Twice the relief boat shot low over the runway, sweeping round in a gigantic circle. Then it changed course and climbed steeply into the stratosphere. They watched it disappear out of sight--the last link with the world they knew.
In the center of the landing strip, a dense column of smoke billowed up from a pile of smoldering moss--a warning that no pilot could fail to observe. In the stillness, it rose in a tall spiral, twisting and turning, signaling to the winds.
"You should've let it land." Walter Pellinger was almost in tears; he blinked miserably.
* * * * *
Delman had never pictured him like this, small, myopic, with fair hair and sloping shoulders. The structure of his eyes had changed during the intervening weeks and the contact lenses he'd worn until recently were quite useless to him. Now, at twenty-one, he was half-blind and of little practical help to them.
"They didn't stand a chance," the lawyer replied.
"Oh, but they did! On the Law
of Probability, they had one in sixty-seven--and our lives are worth a thousand of theirs."
"Yes, I know. Our lives are essential to humanity. You've said it all before and I still disagree with you."
"Have I? I don't remember."
"You have. But it doesn't matter. Come on back. We've got to clear those stones. There aren't many left."
As he strode toward the hangar, the lawyer knew that the days were running short. True, the launching ramp was intact and one door of the hangar was already open; but it would take at least a week to remove the chunks of rejuvenite blocking the remaining door. Tarsh and himself had done most of the heavy work. Yet even Tarsh, with all his feline strength, was beginning to tire. The constant effort to make use of every scrap of daylight was proving too much for them.
According to Gillian, the lifeboat was unharmed. Delman hadn't the time to inspect it properly. But the very position of the hangar, squeezed tight against the cliffside, had given it the best protection possible. No, if only they could remove those stones!
Delman exhaustedly picked up his discarded crowbar. He inserted the point under a slab of rejuvenite, thrust down and pried with all his strength. As it tilted, Gillian Murray forced chocks of metal underneath to hold it in place. The teamwork was repeated time after time, until at last the slab toppled over, gaining them another twelve inches. They rested for a moment. Then the whole endless process started once again.
By dusk, they had removed five stones.
* * * * *
Finished eating, they relaxed in the living room, lying back in the padded comfort of the armchairs. Only Jason Tarsh remained standing--slim and compact, like a young Oriental despot--his eyes fixed on Walter Pellinger.
Pellinger squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "I think I'll try and get some sleep," he said.
"Just a moment, Walter," Tarsh lifted a restraining hand. "You're a businessman and I want your advice. It's quite a simple problem. Imagine that four of your employees are stranded on a desert island with very little food. And suppose they all agree to build a raft on which to escape and get back to the head office--what you might call a 'joint venture.' Now let us also suppose that three of those people work hard, cut down trees and fashion them into planks, gather creepers and braid them into ropes, and generally do all they can to further the common purpose. But the fourth, Walter--and this is the point--the fourth does nothing. He eats the food--Company food, mind you!--so urgently needed to keep up the strength of the--"
"Why do you keep picking on me? I do all I can." Walter Pellinger got out of his chair.
"You?" said Jason Tarsh, affecting amazement. "Who said anything about you? Why, you're the last person I'd criticize. But I see you wish to leave the lovebirds to themselves, so let's finish our little chat outside. It's a fine night." He steered the unwilling Pellinger out onto the veranda.
"Well, shall we take a hint and move over to the settee?" Gillian Murray suggested.
Delman watched with admiration as she crossed the room, clean-limbed and graceful, her long red hair falling from the crown of her head in a soft cascade.
"Never be discourteous to the cook," he replied. "That was one of my earliest lessons. And, heaven knows, you're an unusually attractive cook. It gives one an appetite just to look at you." He got up to join her--a bearded giant, tall and deep-chested, like the heroes of the Viking sagas.
"What will you do when we get back?" she asked.
"Marry and get some job that won't take me away from you. Does that meet with your approval?"
"Yes," she said. "If that's a proposal, it will do nicely."
They kissed with all the intensity of young love, losing in their embrace the dread of time which swept them toward their childhood.
"Curtis," she said quietly, "have we any hope? Please be honest!"
* * * * *
His fingers brushed the back of her neck lightly, up and down, not altering their tender rhythm.
"Not much," he said without emotion.
"Jason was right about the food. There's very little left; the supplies were on the lifeboat. You're all hungry. I know you are."
"It's not only that, darling. Sleep is just as important. But we can't spare the time. Every day now, we'll be growing physically weaker and the same job will soon take us twice as long. There's so much to do. And we've got to plan all of it in advance, while our minds are still adult."
"Is that why you've got the recording machine down here?"
"It may sound idiotic," he said, "but I can't remember my boyhood--it was four hundred years ago. Today, I'm twenty-five, you're twenty, and Walter is somewhere between the two of us. Jason, I'm sure, is less--how much, I don't know. The fact is that we'll be children before we leave--that is, if we leave--and we'll only be able to understand the simple things. So it seemed essential to clarify the lifeboat instructions; the manual would be complete nonsense to a child. Of course, I've added some general advice as it occurred to me."
Gillian sighed. "I don't think I'll like being married to you," she said. "You think of everything. May I switch on the recording machine?"
"Go ahead," he replied. "It will take a few seconds to warm up, though."
She kissed him lightly, then uncurled herself and went over to the recorder. The purr of the machine gradually increased in pitch until it passed from the range of human hearing. The silence was broken by his own voice.
"Curtis!" it said, "Curtis! Do not touch the controls until you are sure that Gillian and Walter and Jason are all in the cabin. Are they all there? Good. Then pull the big lever toward you. Now--"
Jason Tarsh entered the room and switched off the machine. "You can delete Walter," he said. He began to tape the slow, earnest delivery of the recorder. "For he is a silly boy and fell over the edge of the cliff." He smiled and continued in normal tones, "Very unfortunate. Should never have left him alone, poor guy. Blind as a bat. Oh, well, bigger breakfasts tomorrow. Good night."
* * * * *
It was noon. The whole ledge shimmered in the sun, hazy and indistinct, as the rising currents of air dispersed the light in a jumble of refracted motion.
On the runway, between the hangar and the house, stood a nine-year-old boy. A small, motionless figure, with a towel around his waist and his feet bandaged for protection against the blistering heat of the rock, he gazed up in triumph at the launching ramp.
There, perched on the summit of the ramp, lay the squat, powerful bulk of the lifeboat.
He turned and ran joyfully back to the house. "Jill!" he called. "Jill, come and play! And bring Jason with you."
A little girl, her red hair unbrushed, stepped out onto the veranda. "Don't want to bring Jason," she said, "He's mean."
"You must bring Jason," he insisted, "or you can't play."
"What we going to play?"
"'Ships,'" he said. He pointed to the top of the launching ramp.
Silently, the two children trudged across the rock-face and began to climb the steep slope of the ramp, leaning forward to retain their balance. Tucked up in a blanket in Gillian Murray's arms, Jason Tarsh bawled hungrily. Higher and higher they climbed, the only living creatures in a purple world, striving toward their goal. Curtis Delman, hampered by the weight of the recording machine, kept urging her to keep up with him. Suddenly, she stopped.
"Don't want to play," she said. "I'm tired." She sat down on the hot metal of the ramp, placing the baby beside her.
He let her rest for a few minutes, then tried to coax her to carry on. "You're a sissy," he said. "You're afraid!"
Her eyes brimmed with tears. "I'm not a sissy," she cried. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!"
Delman turned and continued climbing purposefully. "Gillian's a sissy! Gillian's a sissy!" he chanted over and over again.
Panting with weariness and indignation, she struggled after him.
They had covered more than half the distance before he looked back. He saw her following and prepared to go on again. Then he realized s
omething was wrong and swung around, startled. Her hands were empty!
"Where's Jason?" he cried out.
* * * * *
She was too exhausted to reply and stared at him blankly. Putting down the recording machine, he ran past her. Some twenty yards away, the bundle of blanket that was Jason Tarsh began to roll gently down the slope.
He raced after it, his swift young legs moving as easily and painlessly as pistons. He reached the bundle just before the change in gradient which marked the first half of the ramp. Horrified, he increased his speed. Propelled by the sharp incline, the bundle branched off at a tangent. He caught it just as it was about to plunge over the side. When he picked up the blanket, it was curiously light.
There was nothing inside it.
Very slowly, he clambered back up the slope.
As he came level with Gillian, he put his arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "Jason was too small to play." Taking her by the hand, he led her to the short, vertical ladder which led into the lifeboat.
After the harsh glare of the sun, the cabin seemed dark and strange. What light there was was filtered through six small port-holes--three on either side--in which the glass was tinted a deep blue.
It took him nearly ten minutes to strap Gillian into the safety harness, and by the time he had adjusted his own, she was asleep. He stretched out his right hand and switched on the recorder.
"Curtis!" it began.
Calmly, he carried out the instructions. The deep, commanding voice left nothing to chance.
A pull on the master lever drew up the ladder and closed the hatch in hydraulic silence. The soft whistle of oxygen escaped from pressurized cylinders. An automatic transmitter broadcast an endless S.O.S. Deep in the heart of the lifeboat, dynamos pulsed with the throb of power.
"Now, Curtis," said the voice from the past, "turn the red switch in front of you to 'Fixed Control.' Have you turned the red switch to 'Fixed Control'? Then lie back and fasten your safety harness as tight as you can. Have you done that?"
"Yeah," Curtis said, lying back.
"You've done everything you had to do," the voice continued. "Now shut your eyes and don't move! Everything will be all right. The two of you will reach Earth. You don't doubt that, do you?"