by Anthology
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: