To Outlive Eternity

by Poul Anderson

  More and more, Hollister doubted it.

  A few sweet crazy days, and vacation's end was there and they took the rocket back to New America. It was the first time Hollister had seen Barbara cry.

  He left her sitting forlornly in the little two-room apartment they now rated, gathering herself to arrange the small heap of their personal possessions, and reported to Air Control. The assistant super gave him a thick, bound sheaf of papers.

  "Here are the orders and specs," he said. "You can have two days to study them." Hollister, who could memorize the lot in a few hours, felt a leap of gladness at the thought of so much free time. The official leaned back in his chair. He was a gnarled old man, retired to a desk after a lifetime of field duty. One cheek was puckered with the scars of an operation for the prevalent HR cancer; Venus had no germs, but prepared her own special death traps. "Relax for a minute and I'll give you the general idea."

  He pointed to a large map on the wall. It was not very complete or highly accurate: surveying on this planet was a job to break a man's heart, and little had been done. "We're establishing your new camp out by Last Chance. You'll note that Little Moscow, Trollen, and Roger's Landing cluster around it at an average distance of two hundred kilometers, so that's where you'll be getting your supplies, sending men on leave, and so forth. I doubt if you'll have any occasion to report back here till you break camp completely in a couple of years."

  And Barbara will be here alone, Barbara and our child whom I won't even see—

  "You'll take your wagon train more or less along this route," went on the super, indicating a dotted line that ran from New America. "It's been gone over and is safe. Notice the eastward jog to Lucifer at the halfway point. That's to refuel and take on fresh food stores."

  Hollister frowned, striving for concentration on the job. "I can't see that. Why not take a few extra wagons and omit the detour?"

  "Orders," said the super.

  Whose orders? Karsov's? I'll bet my air helmet!—but why?

  "Your crew will be . . . kind of tough," said the old man. "They're mostly from Ciudad Alcazar, which is on the other side of the world. It was one of the stubborn colonies when we declared independence, had to be put down by force, and it's still full of sedition. These spigs are all hard cases who've been assigned to this hemisphere so they won't stir up trouble at home. I saw in your dossier that you speak Spanish, among other languages, which is one reason you're being given this bunch. You'll have to treat them rough, remember. Keep them in line."

  I think there was more than one reason behind this.

  "The details are all in your assignment book," said the super. "Report back here in two days, this time. O.K.—have fun!" He smiled, suddenly friendly now that his business was completed.

  V

  Darkness and a whirl of poison sleet turned the buildings into crouching black monsters, hardly to be told from the ragged snarl of crags which ringed them in. Hollister brought his tank to a grinding halt before a tower which fixed him with a dazzling floodlight eye. "Sit tight, Diego," he said, and slapped his helmet down.

  His chief assistant, Fernandez, nodded a sullen dark head. He was competent enough, and had helped keep the unruly crew behaving itself, but remained cold toward his boss. There was always a secret scorn in his eyes.

  Hollister wriggled through the airlock and dropped to the ground. A man in a reinforced, armorlike suit held a tommy-gun on him, but dropped the muzzle as he advanced. The blast of white light showed a stupid face set in lines of habitual brutality.

  "You the airman come for supplies?" he asked.

  "Yes. Can I see your chief?"

  The guard turned wordlessly and led the way. Beyond the lock of the main shell was a room where men sat with rifles. Hollister was escorted to an inner office, where a middle-aged, rather mild-looking fellow in Guardian uniform greeted him. "How do you do? We had word you were coming. The supplies were brought to our warehouse and you can load them when you wish."

  Hollister accepted a chair. "I'm Captain Thomas," the other continued. "Nice to have you. We don't see many new faces at Lucifer—not men you can talk to, anyway. How are things in New America?"

  He gossiped politely for a while. "It's quite a remarkable installation we have here," he ended. "Would you like to see it?"

  Hollister grimaced. "No, thanks."

  "Oh, I really must insist. You and your chief assistant and one or two of the foremen. They'll all be interested, and can tell the rest of your gang how it is. There's so little to talk about in camp."

  Hollister debated refusing outright and forcing Thomas to show his hand. But why bother? Karsov had given orders, and Thomas would conduct him around at gun point if necessary. "O.K., thanks," he said coldly. "Let me get my men bunked down first, though."

  "Of course. We have a spare barracks for transients. I'll expect you in two hours . . . with three of your men, remember."

  Diego Fernandez only nodded when Hollister gave him the news. The chief skinned his teeth in a bleak sort of grin. "Don't forget to 'oh' and 'ah,'" he said. "Our genial host will be disappointed if you don't, and he's a man I'd hate to disappoint."

  The smoldering eyes watched him with a quizzical expression that faded back into blankness. "I shall get Gomez and San Rafael," said Fernandez. "They have strong stomachs."

  Thomas received them almost unctuously and started walking down a series of compartments. "As engineers, you will be most interested in the mine itself," he said. "I'll show you a little of it. This is the biggest uranium deposit known in the Solar System."

  He led them to the great cell block, where a guard with a shock gun fell in behind them. "Have to be careful," said Thomas. "We've got some pretty desperate characters here, who don't feel they have much to lose."

  "All lifers, eh?" asked Hollister.

  Thomas looked surprised. "Of course! We couldn't let them go back after what the radiation does to their germ plasm."

  A man rattled the bars of his door as they passed. "I'm from New America!" His harsh scream bounded between steel walls. "Do you know my wife? Is Martha Riley all right?"

  "Shut up!" snapped the guard, and fed him a shock beam. He lurched back into the darkness of his cell. His mate, whose face was disfigured by a cancer, eased him to his bunk.

  Someone else yelled, far down the long white-lit rows. A guard came running from that end. The voice pleaded: "It's a nightmare. It's just a nightmare. The stuff's got intuh muh brain and I'm always dreamin' nightmares—"

  "They get twitchy after a while," said Thomas. "Stuff will seep through the suits and lodge in their bodies. Then they're not much good for anything but pick-and-shovel work. Don't be afraid, gentlemen, we have reinforced suits for the visitors and guards."

  These were donned at the end of the cell block. Beyond the double door, a catwalk climbed steeply, till they were on the edge of an excavation which stretched farther than they could see in the gloom.

  "It's rich enough yet for open-pit mining," said Thomas, "though we're driving tunnels, too." He pointed to a giant scooper. Tiny shapes of convicts scurried about it. "Four-hour shifts because of the radiation down there. Don't believe those rumors that we aren't careful with our boys. Some of them live for thirty years."

  Hollister's throat felt cottony. It would be so easy to rip off Thomas' air hose and kick him down into the pit! "What about women prisoners?" he asked slowly. "You must get some."

  "Oh, yes. Right down there with the men. We believe in equality on Venus."

  There was a strangled sound in the earphones, but Hollister wasn't sure which of his men had made it.

  "Very essential work here," said Thomas proudly. "We refine the ore right on the spot too, you know. It not only supplies such nuclear power as Venus needs, but exported to Earth it buys the things we still have to have from them."

  "Why operate it with convict labor?" asked Hollister absently. His imagination was wistfully concentrated on the image of himself branding his initials on T
homas' anatomy. "You could use free men, taking proper precautions, and it would be a lot more efficient and economical of manpower."

  "You don't understand." Thomas seemed a bit shocked. "These are enemies of the state."

  I've read that line in the history books. Some state, if it makes itself that many enemies!

  "The refinery won't interest you so much," said Thomas. "Standard procedure, and it's operated by nonpolitical prisoners under shielding. They get skilled, and become too valuable to lose. But no matter who a man is, how clever he is, if he's been convicted of treason he goes to the mine."

  So this was a warning—or was it a provocation?

  When they were back in the office, Thomas smiled genially. "I hope you gentlemen have enjoyed the tour," he said. "Do stop in and see me again sometime." He held out his hand. Hollister turned on his heel, ignoring the gesture, and walked out.

  Even in the line of duty, a man can only do so much.

  Somewhat surprisingly Hollister found himself getting a little more popular with his crew after the visit to Lucifer. The three who were with him must have seen his disgust and told about it. He exerted himself to win more of their friendship, without being too obtrusive about it: addressing them politely, lending a hand himself in the task of setting up camp, listening carefully to complaints about not feeling well instead of dismissing them all as malingering. That led to some trouble. One laborer who was obviously faking a stomach-ache was ordered back to the job and made an insulting crack. Hollister knocked him to the floor with a single blow. Looking around at the others present, he said slowly: "There will be no whippings in this camp, because I do not believe men should be treated thus. But I intend to remain chief and to get this business done." Nudging the fallen man with his foot: "Well, go on back to your work. This is forgotten also in the records I am supposed to keep."

  He didn't feel proud of himself—the man had been smaller and weaker than he. But he had to have discipline, and the Venusians all seemed brutalized to a point where the only unanswerable argument was force. It was an inevitable consequence of their type of government, and boded ill for the future.

  Somewhat later, his radio-electronics technie, Valdez—a soft-spoken little fellow who did not seem to have any friends in camp—found occasion to speak with him. "It seems that you have unusual ideas about running this operation, señor," he remarked.

  "I'm supposed to get the airmakers installed," said Hollister. "That part of it is right on schedule."

  "I mean with regard to your treatment of the men, señor. You are the mildest chief they have had. I wish to say that it is appreciated, but some of them are puzzled. If I may give you some advice, which is doubtless not needed, it would be best if they knew exactly what to expect."

  Hollister felt bemused. "Fairness, as long as they do their work. What is so strange about that?"

  "But some of us . . . them . . . have unorthodox ideas about politics."

  "That is their affair, Señor Valdez." Hollister decided to make himself a little more human in the technie's eyes. "I have a few ideas of my own, too."

  "Ah, so. Then you will permit free discussion in the barracks?"

  "Of course."

  "I have hidden the recorder in there very well. Do you wish to hear the tapes daily, or shall I just make a summary?"

  "I don't want to hear any tapes," stated Hollister. "That machine will not be operated."

  "But they might plan treason!"

  Hollister laughed and swept his hand around the wall. "In the middle of that? Much good their plans do them!" Gently: "All of you may say what you will among yourselves. I am an engineer, not a secret policeman."

  "I see, señor. You are very generous. Believe me, it is appreciated."

  Three days later, Valdez was dead.

  Hollister had sent him out with a crew to run some performance tests on the first of the new airmakers. The men came back agitatedly, to report that a short, sudden rock storm had killed the technie. Hollister frowned, to cover his pity for the poor lonely little guy. "Where is the body?" he asked.

  "Out there, señor—where else?"

  Hollister knew it was the usual practice to leave men who died in the field where they fell; after Venusian conditions had done their work, it wasn't worthwhile salvaging the corpse for its chemicals. But—"Have I not announced my policy?" he snapped. "I thought that you people, of all, would be glad of it. Dead men will be kept here, so we can haul them into town and have them properly buried. Does not your religion demand that?"

  "But Valdez, señor—"

  "Never mind! Back you go, at once, and this time bring him in." Hollister turned his attention to the problem of filling the vacancy. Control wasn't going to like him asking for another so soon; probably he couldn't get one anyway. Well, he could train Fernandez to handle the routine parts, and do the more exacting things himself.

  He was sitting in his room that night, feeling acutely the isolation of a commander—too tired to add another page to his letter to Barbara, not tired enough to go to sleep. There was a knock on the door. His start told him how thin his nerves were worn. "Come in!"

  Diego Fernandez entered. The chill white fluorolight showed fear in his eyes and along his mouth. "Good evening, Simon," he said tonelessly. They had gotten to the stage of first names, though they still addressed each other with the formal pronoun.

  "Good evening, Diego. What is it?"

  The other bit his lip and looked at the floor. Hollister did not try to hurry him. Outside, the wind was running and great jags of lightning sizzled across an angry sky, but this room was buried deep and very quiet.

  Fernandez's eyes rose at last. "There is something you ought to know, Simon. Perhaps you already know it."

  "And perhaps not, Diego. Say what you will. There are no recorders here."

  "Well, then, Valdez was not accidentally killed. He was murdered."

  Hollister sat utterly still.

  "You did not look at the body very closely, did you?" went on Fernandez, word by careful word. "I have seen suits torn open by flying rocks. This was not such a one. Some instrument did it . . . a compressed-air drill, I think."

  "And do you know why it was done?"

  "Yes." Fernandez's face twisted. "I cannot say it was not a good deed. Valdez was a spy for the government."

  Hollister felt a knot in his stomach. "How do you know this?"

  "One can be sure of such things. After the . . . the Venusians had taken Alcazar, Valdez worked eagerly with their police. He had always believed in confederation and planetary independence. Then he went away, to some engineering assignment it was said. But he had a brother who was proud of the old hidalgo blood, and this brother sought to clear the shame of his family by warning that Valdez had taken a position with the Guardians. He told it secretly, for he was not supposed to, but most of Alcazar got to know it. The men who had fought against the invaders were sent here, to the other side of the world, and it is not often we get leave to go home even for a short while. But we remembered, and we knew Valdez when he appeared on this job. So when those men with him had a chance to revenge themselves, they took it."

  Hollister fixed the brown eyes with his own. "Why do you tell me this?" he asked.

  "I do not—quite know. Except that you have been a good chief. It would be best for us if we could keep you, and this may mean trouble for you."

  I'll say! First I practically told Valdez how I feel about the government, then he must have transmitted it with the last radio report, and now he's dead. Hollister chose his words cautiously: "Have you thought that the best way I can save myself is to denounce those men?"

  "They would go to Lucifer, Simon."

  "I know." He weighed the factors, surprised at his own detached calm. On the one hand there were Barbara and himself, and his own mission; on the other hand were half a dozen men who would prove most valuable come the day—for it was becoming more and more clear that the sovereign state of Venus would have to be knocked do
wn, the sooner the better.

  Beyond a small ache, he did not consider the personal element; Un-man training was too strong in him for that. A melody skipped through his head. "Here's a how-de-do—" It was more than a few men, he decided; this whole crew, all fifty or so, had possibilities. A calculated risk was in order.

  "I did not hear anything you said," he spoke aloud. "Nor did you ever have any suspicions. It is obvious that Valdez died accidentally—too obvious to question."

  Fernandez's smile flashed through the sweat that covered his face. "Thank you, Simon!"

  "Thanks to you, Diego." Hollister gave him a drink—the boss was allowed a few bottles—and sent him on his way.